CostCo - Where Dreams Come True

The agency for which I work invited a CostCo guy to come and give staff introductory deals to join so I did.  I mean, come on, it's practically unAmerican to not belong to some sort of pay to shop group.
CostCo -- Imagine a place where you can buy a television, a bottle of wine, organic blueberries, a coffin, shrimp cocktail, and automobile tires.
The place kind of reminded me of Hoagland's General Store in the little town of Young, Arizona, where I grew up.
The store was run by two brothers -- Ray and Glenn Hoagland.  Every once in awhile Glenn drove their big old army surplus truck into Phoenix to bring back stuff to sell in the store.  Ray, on the other hand, had never left the little town of two hundred.
"I went down to that bend in the road once," he told me one snowy day.  "But there wasn't much to see that I couldn't already see from the porch here."
So he never ventured further than their property.
You could find just about anything in that store.  Horse shoes.  Dried pinto beans.  Cover alls.  You know the kind.  Ray wore them all of the time.  Cold or hot soda depending on whether or not the generator which powered the refrigerator was working.  Motor oil.
Ray often ventured an opinion on whatever it was you were about to buy.
"You don't need that.  Save your money."
or
"That's no good.  Spend your money on something better."
I couldn't help but notice today at CostCo today no one told me not to buy the stuff in my cart.
Sometimes I could use Ray back in my life.  He wouldn't come to me, though, on account of that bend in the road.