Attention Costco Shoppers

Dear Costco Shoppers:

You. Yeah, you know I'm talking to you. Thing is, I don't think you care.

We're in a warehouse store. The shopping carts are pretty wide, but then so are most of the aisles -- you know, to make up for the fact that everything is huge there. Kind of makes sense that way.

I'm quite aware that they also hand out free samples of food. Free food is generally good. To be honest, a lot of the food they offer is remarkably good, for a wholesale club.

But for the love of Pete, can you please think for just a microsecond before the lure of free food -- or the sight of the 128-oz. bag of potato chips -- irresistably tempts you to stop in the middle of the freaking aisle?

In theory, at least three oversized shopping carts can fit into any given aisle: one cart on either side of the aisle, and one moving down the center of it. I'm pretty sure they planned it that way. What they didn't plan for was the notion that people like you would actually turn your cart to the most inconvenient position possible as you examine the jumbo size jars of Jif peanut butter, causing others to have to move way the hell around you. Somehow, you manage to either turn the cart perpendicular to the item you want (huh?), or you manage to line youself up with the other carts in the aisle, creating the perfect blockade point. Never mind that there's empty space before and after the point where you're standing, you have to stop exactly where you are, which happens to be exactly where other carts and people create a logjam.

It gets worse in the produce area in the back of the store. The aisles are narrower there. Can we please act accordingly? Let's all please learn to recognize that there are people behind us most of the time, and that any abrupt stopping will greatly disrupt the flow of people moving around the area. Stopping dead in your tracks to get a free sample of king crab corn chowder -- and actally standing there to eat it -- stops things up. Even worse is when you stop dead in your tracks waiting for the free samples to become available. That's a little pathetic, as well as the cause of flowus interruptus.

Of course, this isn't limited to Costco shoppers. It happens pretty much at any grocery store I've ever been to. Serious, folks, does it take that much work to actually think about how your actions affect the others around you?

Thanks for the consideration.

XOXO,
Dennis!