(the following events occurred on 11.15.2023)

As we exited the car Silas said “that light seems like it’s blinking” pointing up to one of the large lamps situated in the Costco parking lot. This should have been taken taken as a sign but I chose to ignore it. We went through the doorway with the customary ‘wave our Costco card in the air’ to anyone who might remotely acknowledge us. Upon entering we noticed the store was darker than normal… but like also still fairly well lit. There was definitely enough power to light up several christmas trees.

One of our Costco staples is cat food. More specifically “Maintenance Cat”. The food you get when you want to make sure the neighborhood cats (and crows and possibly skunks) are still alive. Now I don’t know your local Costco layout and I also don’t know if you have (and or ‘maintain’) cats, but, let me tell you that I am not exaggerating when I say that cat food is more-or-less the furthest point from the front door at our local Costco. It’s also more-or-less the place where we begin our shopping.

Maintenance Cat

Ok… so if you’re still with me. Me and the boys are traversing a dimmer than usual Costco heading towards the cat food wondering if Pizza and Hot Dogs are actually still going to be available. Once we reach the far corner an employee announces that “There is a power outage and we have 10 minutes of backup power. After that we will not be able to process transactions.”.

So Pizza and Hot Dogs are most likely out the window. Same goes for the coffee grinders in the front of the store that I have come to rely on.

We agree that the best plan is to grab a few things and head out and soon we have a cart full of catfood, butter, sauvignon blanc, paper towels and toilet paper. Not all the items we had but at least all the items that were in our vicinity (and yes… I know you can grind coffee at home… but like why?).

We check out and I say “hey guys we’ll get food somewhere else”. I feel like I'm adulting pretty well at this point. The guy at the exit does the customary glance at my receipt and we’re back in the parking lot… and EVERYTHING IS FUCKED.

First off it’s raining.
Which is not the biggest deal but it’s still wild for us drought folks.

We make it back to the car and then we notice that there is a very long line of cars trying to exit. My first reaction is to turn on the car and get in line. The perimeter of the parking lot is a halo of headlights and there isn't even the slightest hint of movement. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon and I have no desire to sit in this line. I pull over and re-park and convey as much to the kids.

So things are definitely not going to plan. By this point we’d been hoping to head home with snacks and now we’re stuck. I’m also low-key tripping out because normally I plug my phone in before I go to bed every night but I seemingly didn’t do that last night. Also the other day I brought the charger that is ALWAYS IN THE VAN into the house for some dumb reason.

So this is a bit of a bummer, however, we are in a van that does have a cupboard of games (and books). As I was trying to save phone power I turned off bluetooth music and dug out Case Logic of burned cds that I keep behind the drivers seat.

So we spend the next hour and a half playing Battleship, Mancala and Yahtzee (Silas bowed out of Yahtzee and read 'Calvin and Hobbes'). We listened to Elvis Costello.

Now, I hope I’ve painted a cozy picture. For it truly was. However, all the while I had to pretend be the adult. I was bummed, frustrated and a bit scared. How long would this take? When were we going to eat? Why did I not charge my phone last night? I really hope nobody starts freaking out.

As we hung out in this less than ideal scenario I thought about how lucky I was that this was my ‘less than ideal’ scenario.

Calvin and I were in the middle of our second Yahtzee game when we noticed that traffic was beginning to move. We finished up the game and packed up. From there it was smooth sailing straight on back to our local burrito spot.

  • Battleship: Larson vs Calvin and Silas - Larson
  • Mancala: Larson vs Silas - Silas
  • Yahtzee: Larson vs Calvin - Larson
  • Yahtzee: Larson vs Calvin - Calvin

Costco Battleship

epilogue:
Calvin and I went back to Costco the next day after his orthodontist appointment to pick off the things we missed.

  • Coffee
  • Almond Butter
  • Cereal
  • Dish Soap
  • Sponges
  • 2 Churros (this was not on the original list)

We spent the least amount of time possible there.