Sunday at Costco.....Because

I knew what I was getting into before I left my driveway.  I wasn't surprised by any of it.  Knowing that kept me sane.

There was a line of six cars waiting to turn into the parking lot.  Having anticipated that, I stayed in the outside lane and turned left into the furthest entrance from the store.  I was all alone as I drove up to the companion box store and turned toward Costco.

It was then that the stupid began.

Yes, FlapJilly and friends, stupid is a bad word.  But grown ups know that it connotes a certain type of behavior that has no equivalent descriptor.  Foolish, brainless, idiotic.... stupid is all that and more.

It's not knowing that backing up into a car that's right behind you might be the reason there are horns blaring and people staring.  It's continuing to move when the agitation comes ever more obviously closer to your vehicle.  And, mostly, it's finishing your maneuver and driving way without acknowledging that anything happened at all.

It's blocking the pathway of the woman in the motorized shopping cart, not giving her room to get started without colliding into your ankles.  Not that you don't deserve it.  I blocked for her, much to the annoyance of the older gentleman to my left, and followed them into the store.

I like to pause out of the way to put my membership card back in my wallet.  I have noxious history of leaving such things in pockets and losing them forever.  I'm better off taking the time to do it right.  Since it's not easy for me to balance everything while moving forward, my cart and I pulled over, as we usually do, near the laptop displays.

There I watched children left behind by browsing parents, then berated for getting lost.  Really?  He'd been standing in the same place the whole time.

I meandered behind couples munching on the ubiquitous freebies, fondling sweat pants, admiring the costumes with a very intense 3rd grader by my side.  It was a slow walk, and I didn't mind.  There were dads with lists, dispatching offspring to hunt and gather.

A 30 something man left his cart and hustled past me to the flats of water, asking how many I wanted as he lifted one and placed it in my cart.  He was abashed as I thanked him.

There were giant hunks of meat and absolutely not one single solitary roasted chicken which made what's for dinner an easy question to answer.  I found my strawberry-frozen-yogurt-on-a-stick box, placed it in the cooler bag I remembered to bring in with me, and headed to check out.

I forgot my book, but that turned out okay.  There was no line.  No line at all at three registers.  On Sunday.  The cashier and her assistant and I shared a where are they moment before I headed out the door and found The Uv.

I managed to get everything into the car, while a silver Toyota waited patiently.  We were both in the shade;  that is a Tucson moment to be treasured.

I drove home the long way, the way with fewer lights and fewer cars and fewer busy cross streets.  I wasn't taking any chances on holding it together any longer; I didn't want to be challenged.  I didn't have the radio on.  I didn't want to hear about the death and destruction that is being perpetrated by skinny white boys in hoodies, by young men with access to weaponry that belongs on the battle field, in a country that can't seem to get its national leadership to care.

Sunday at Costco was the perfect antidote to Gilroy and Dayton and ..... oh..... I'm having trouble coming up with...... El Paso.

There are so many.

And it's so stupid.