The Costco Crisis

For those not familiar with the mega-market known as Costco, it is a place where the consumer can buy anything and everything from tires to televisions to tooth paste.  It suits to a "T" almost every earthly need, especially for institutions like convalescent homes, food distribution agencies, and the like.
This writer refers to said shopping spa as the "Shrine of Saint Shrinkwrap".  If you would like to buy some "tp" for the "wc", this place has it, but only in packages of forty-eight; swathed in cellophane.   While lingering on the subject of "earthly needs", there is evidence that Costco has even gone into the business of selling burial caskets.  Dare we say, that's a grave undertaking!  
           In the View's efforts to create a vision of size for our readership abroad, the closest comparison we can conjure is the Swedish merchant, Ikea.  However, that comparison falls short in terms of scope, and the absence of meatballs and lingonberries in the cafeteria line.
           But  institutions are far from the only clientele the "Big C" caters to.  They do a thriving, and we do mean THRIVING business with the personal consumer.  It has even gone to the extent of selling things one doesn't, or in our case, shouldn't buy.  Therein lies the crisis...at least for us. 
                                            Let the record show that the editorial staff has "no axe to grind" with this wholesaler/retailer....eleven months out of the year.  It's a variation of peaceful co-existence, to wit: I live in peace with the firm,  as long as the Bride doesn't require my presence when she makes her pilgrimages  there.  When she does, the relationship degrades to "tentative" status.  Then it becomes a matter of survival in the aisles and checkout lines as hordes and hordes of people converge on the same aisles and lines, and at the same times.   It's then that we (meaning "I") lapse into teeth-gritting mode.  The smile through clenched teeth fades only after we exit the parking lot.
                                        It is that twelfth month, during the season of Advent that all

manner of spiritual and visceral restraint is required.  To her credit, the Bride habitually takes with her a list of needs, most all of which can be deemed "practical" in nature.  However, even during the eleven "off-months", she is occasionally inclined toward the impulsive purchase.  (There are vendors, plying their "freebie samples" generously scattered, throughout.)  Again, from January through November, she fetches nary a pout from the patriarch. But December is a "whole 'nother ballgame.  It is then when this Big House Baron becomes our (read that "my") avowed enemy.
                                     Your scribe takes little pride in his domestic  accomplishments.  He performs the obligatory spousal duties, which go unnoticed, as they should...unless of course, they are forgotten.   His guitar-playing, charitably speaking, would be considered "serviceable" by a modest number of friends.  But when it comes to Christmas gift selection for "You-Know-Who", that is when he strives to be a total, uncontested, two-thumbs-up winner.  Year after year, pride is gained from knowing what the Lady wants.  But, it is written: "Pride goeth before a fall".  I believe that quote comes from the 1st book of Hesitations.

                                     My Damsel has needed a desk lamp, but not just any desk lamp would do, owing to the space in which it was to be used.  It is an old-fashioned "secretary" desk, which her mother used for many years.  Shelf area on it is severely limited.  So also were a whole host of options which mandated: no clamps, no holes drilled, and nothing higher than her desktop.  The challenge was assumed by this writer as his Christmas crusade.  He was going to find just the right lamp for his Lady's needs or die the valiant, knightly death in trying.  Ultimately, he succeeded!!  But wait, there's more..........

 

 

             A short, scant two days following the online order, the abovementioned Bride did her monthly C- thing, and feeling in dire need.....a dire need that could only be addressed in one location....that location being the secretary where she attends to practically everything having to do with her computer.  She did the very agonizing thing I so desperately wanted to avoid!!  My reputation as a black-belt gift buyer went out the window as she showed me a box....a box containing a wretched desk lamp.  I could feel the wind, heading south of my sails. 
              Once she had been given the confessional clue, naturally that lamp was never to see the light of day on the hill.  So when presents were unwrapped on Christmas morn, there it was, in all its partially assembled splendor; Allen wrench, provided.  And of course, there wasn't a gasp of surprise or an "oh-my-gawsh".  There was simply a hug and a kiss for a need that was answered. 
           The light is "old-timey" enough to match the furniture's period.  It really does illuminate quite handsomely.  Wound-licking has ceased, and this renaissance geezer will rise up off the mat to resume the search for the next, soon-to-be, most perfect gift. 
                                                       A blessed Christmas and Yuletide season to all our loyal readers.