Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would write a blog post in praise of Costco, but here I am doing just that.

I always had mixed feelings about mega-monster-super-stores and the things that they stand for: consumerism, excess, and capitalism come to mind in direct contrast to reuse and recycle, minimalism, and sharing.

We decided to go out to Costco and get supplies that will allow us to stay indoors for an extended period of time.  On our list we had things like rice, canned foods, meat, and cereal and we figured that if we buy the up-sized Costco packaging, supplies will last for a while and we won’t have to go out as often.  We are being told that 44% of confirmed cases in Canada are community transferred cases and this highlights the need to stay home and ride this out.

So back to our Super-Size-It strategy, we put on disposable gloves (yes, we have a supply of those since, as RVers, we need to empty our black tanks using some protective gear) and headed to our nearest Costco.

The first sign that indicated an organized approach in an attempt to deal with the pandemic was evident before we even entered the store.  We were directed by two ladies armed with disinfectants to the front of the buggy train and instructed to take a freshly-cleaned buggy.  We gratefully took it and proceeded into the store.

The store was well stocked (although I don’t think that they had any toilet paper).  Employees had protective gear on and were using sanitizers on various surfaces, the store wasn’t very busy and shoppers carefully walked a safe distance from each other.  There was calmness in the air, clearly influence by the employees’ safe and practical approach!

We filled up our cart and made our way to the checkout area.

Again, we were greeted by calm and collected employees who directed us to seperate lines and ensured that we kept adequate distance from other shoppers.  An employee took our groceries out of the buggy and another employee put them back in our buggy, while we were instructed to step aside and not face any of the employees while they handled our groceries.

We paid and proceeded to leave the store and even then there were employees outside the store directing shoppers in a way that incoming shoppers will not directly face outgoing shoppers.

I am not sure if all supermarkets are following these same procedures, and I am not sure if they had these procedures in place already as part of their emergency response procedures, but either way, they did a great job protecting their employees and customers!

Thank you, Costco for stepping up and making us feel protected and safe!

Other corporations and organizations are doing their part as well, donating large amounts of masks, services, lowered rates, grace periods, etc.  We are now starting to see in Canada this amazing trend of camaraderie as we try to get through these crazy times together.

We happened to watch True Stories that night.  This 1986 movie and its slightly odd commentary about consumerism added an extra lens of eerie prophecy to an already semi-surreal day.

If you enjoyed this post, please follow us.  You can like our Facebook page, share on your favourite social media page, or drop us a line to tell us about your experiences.  When you shop via our links to Amazon.com in the United States, or in Canada at Amazon.ca we will get a portion of the sales.