DCostco

It would make sense that people who live in DC would like to shop local, but in the "taxation without representation" district it's not an option if you're thinking Costco. Costco is in Virginia. And all those DC folks, along with everyone in the states of Virginia and Maryland, were in the Pentagon City Costco parking lot today. Every darn one of them. I'm sure of it.

I hadn't even considered what Costco would be like here. It's been part of my life for eons. I drive there, I park (yes, sometimes I have to park way out yonder, but I park), I shop, I load my car, I head home. Done. Simple. The Costco Experience as it should be.

Not in DC (VA). Costco is not easy here. Let me just say that we had to validate our parking receipt, roll a shopping cart through the Costco parking lot, through the adjacent mall, up a floor or two via elevator (an elevator only big enough for one cart at a time, so we waited in line for our turn), and across at least five rows and several aisles of parked cars before we could load up the car, then pull out cautiously (because several cars were already vying for our parking space), hunt for our validated parking receipt, drive to the exit, wait in line as people hunted for parking receipts or dug in pockets for change and then one-by-one exited so that we could finally pay the attendant ourselves, wait for the gate to lift, pull out of the parking garage, and then finally, totally exhausted, head home. And that was only our departure from Costco.

The arrival was worse, beginning with 1 1/2 blocks of backed up cars waiting to ENTER the parking lot through the gated entrance, each car required to stop and grab their parking receipt and wait for the gate to lift before entering. Then a minimum of 5 laps around the parking lot before giving up and heading to the adjacent mall's tiered parking behind Costco, maneuvering for a parking space, hunting down the correct elevator (which takes you to the mall), walking through the mall to exit into the Costco parking lot (note: this is where we started), and then weaving cautiously through an unbelievable number of frustrated drivers pulling wildly in and out of parking spaces, before grabbing a cart, showing our membership card, and finally entering Costco.

Once inside, you might as well be in St. George, UT, or Issaquah, WA, or Albuquerque, NM, or San Bernardino, CA, because all Costco's look the same on the inside, with a few minor exceptions. But this was the Pentagon Costco, in Arlington (Pentagon City), Virginia (no, it isn't built in the shape of a pentagon, it is still your basic big box warehouse store).

So, no, the minor exception today was not design, it was inventory. The exception today was a missing refrigerated shelf with uncooked tortillas. Nada, nunca, nil. None. No where. No how. And those yummy tortillas were our main reason for braving the risky DCostco experience. Kyle and I wanted those tortillas (Kyle a bit more than me) since having yummy Cafe Rio-style sweet pork burritos at Kelly's last weekend - in home-fried fresh, soft, warm tortillas.

So, as happens any time you venture into the wilds of the Costco aisles, we managed to purchase $250 of "non-tortilla stuff", but not one real tortilla. Cooked or uncooked. Not one.

I'm not sure that was worth risking our lives and sanity, but then again, I am sure that we'll do it again sometime. It's hard to pass up those free samples. And where else are DC/VA/MD folks actually friendly?

It's just the way we roll in the DC area. At least when we're not stuck in traffic.