Costco!

We love Costco, despite the fact that we don’t need mass quantities of household goods. We have a small family, just 2 adults, 7 goats, various geese, chickens, koi, dogs and a cat. But we like our coffee and we can get bags and bags of dark roast at Costco.

When you go in the front door a worker checks your Costco card. Makes you feel important (if you have one). In the line going in are black people, white people, brown people, other people. People in hijab. People speaking Spanish, Turkish, Khmer, Chinese, every language. These are the faces and families that make up America today. They were different families and faces in generations past, maybe more European, but still people who had embarked upon a massive trek to get here from dicey circumstances.

People have always been migrating. 200,000 years ago we were moving out of East Africa and we haven’t stopped. Always seeking a better circumstance. All animals do it. I see little turtles crossing the road and I’m like, “Oh, little dude, why? You’re gonna get run over”. But he’s like, “But there might be something better over there!”

These families in Costco, dancing around shopping carts full of huge boxes of cereal, TP, detergent, a shed they will assemble in their new back yard, $20 jeans and a bag of underwear, they will not replace us; they will only enhance us. They are working hard, starting businesses, sharing their food, music, traditions and in the process making America.

This is a continent that will never stop being made. Ever since the founding fathers and mothers came across the Bering Strait, we have been making ourselves and our opportunities. Countless civilizations have risen and fallen. We give to the world and we take right back. We rise, we fall and we enhance it all.

As we check out of Costco (a company which consciously invests in its employees, I might add) a middle aged Latina woman checks our cart against our receipt, swipes a black sharpie and and tells us, “Have a nice rest of your day!”