who is Bob Lefsetz?

Costco

Every rich person needs to go. Not to one in the tony suburbs, but the inner city, where all classes meet.

All this talk about a loneliness epidemic, men having no friends, I understand it. But we can’t demonize the internet, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me, we can reach out and touch so many, we’re never completely alone. But the human touch is important too. We no longer bowl together, and who even bowls anyway? Hanging with the masses, those you don’t know, is anathema. We all live in the country, but we are not all in it together.

Unless you’re at Costco.

FWIW, there's a note on the Lefsetz pod that it was recorded prior to the he publication of the NYT interview.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, September 21, 2023 8:58 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sickos: no...ha ha ha...no!

lol

We no longer bowl together, and who even bowls anyway?

i met some friends a huge bowling alley about a month ago and it was PACKED, like there was a wait to get a lane

That's because they knew Lefsetz wasn't going to show up

i bet he's really bad at bowling

sudden bowling non sequitur is sweet cuz presumably an echo of robert putnam whom you don't hear constantly invoked anymore

i kept excerpting stuff from the little monograph on costco but there was too much stuff and the flow is so important. it doesn't even start at costco: first he's across the street at the tire shop getting rung up by an eastern european and wondering if the guy enjoys his job. there's a wait and the marisesque felice is unavailable so he wanders over to costco and the reader follows. highly recommended.

Oh, I’ve been to Costco a number of times. It’s not like I’m completely inexperienced.

And then I’m debating the time. I love a casual visit to Costco, but what if I had to go regularly?

The deals were amazing. About sixty cents on the dollar compared to Amazon. And it’s cognitive dissonance, I’m blowing thousands in one shot on dentistry and I’m saving dollars on household products? I mean we all want to save money, but is it worth it? I mean is the time worth it. Or should you have it all delivered for a bit more. And you’re saving gas money and helping the environment.

He sounds like a Raymond Carver character or something

You're helping the environment by making someone else drive the stuff to your house?

narrator: you're not

I go to Costco about once a week and I'm usually the only one there in a mask, and one of the few not speaking Russian.

i love costco lol; really is an essay to be written about class in america thru the lens of costco and he really is consciously trying to write it on his blog for janns but he is so oblivious and distracted that the piece becomes a strange manifold on the surface of which the reader can see reflected their own distorted idiot face

if all this guy did was stuff like the costco post, i would totally read his blog all the time

we jann ecostco

I absolutely detest Costco with a fiery passion, but I think that stems from the only times I'm ever able to go being on weekends and the one nearest our house is an absolute chaotic madhouse all weekend long. People dragging two carts at a time, abandoning their carts lengthwise in the middle of aisles to grab things, almost everyone seems miserable to be there... hate it so much.

Sunday night an hour before close is usually decent

during the pandemic my schedule was pretty open and I’d work weird hours and just go to costco at 2pm on a tuesday

I've been to Costco many times, but not once on my own - I've only gone when I was living in a house or with someone who needed to stock up on shit, and honestly even then I hated it. Granted, prices are good, but the people I go with have this mentality like we're stocking up a bunker. Was much happier when I could stop by the Key Food on the way home and grab a few things. Never wasted anything because I only bought what I could use or consume in a reasonable amount of time. Now, our fridge has stuff like a giant container of salsa that was opened a year ago and still 90% full.

You guys ever order a pizza from the special pizza phone?

> but the people I go with have this mentality like we're stocking up a bunker

I like when they send me a flyer of online specials, and there's usually a whole leg jamón serrano with a basswood display stand, and next to it there's a special price on 800 meals of freeze dried vegetable protein taco filling sealed in plastic tubs. And they both cost $400. Blue state / red state bunker stocking; they know how to walk the line!

when i had storage space and ate gluten costco was fine, now neither their enormous quantities of stuff nor their ridiculously cheap pizza are things which attract me

also, "inner city costco"? those are a thing?

the inner city, where all classes meet

The pizza's good! We've gone there just to pick up pizza...

I *love* Costco, and while I don't know what an "inner city Costco" may be (as opposed to a "Costco, in a city"), they do differ between locations and often tweak what they stock to suit the location. For example, one of our closer Costco's has a larger Muslim clientele, so they often stock frozen halal half lambs. Or a Costco in the PNW might have more Asian cooking supplies, like frozen sea cucumber. I also learned that the bakery has some degree of discretion, and not all Costco bakeries offer the same stuff. They also have a relatively good reputation for how they treat their employees.

Plus gas is much cheaper, they've got a pretty good selection of bourbon and they have a great team of eye doctors/pharmacists on site here.

I have no idea what specific "inner city" one he's talking about, but for a large portion of the country, they're typically in suburbs or the kind of fringe areas where big box stores exist. I don't know that I've been to one in a more densely-packed area.

Granted, the only time I ever fill up with gas at a Costco is when I do it for my mother-in-law's car when we visit her, usually on the weekends, but waiting 20-30 minutes to get to a pump isn't worth the savings ime.

Yeah, I stopped doing that once we had kids and just don't have the time (ironically, as gas is more $$ now)

Weird, it's fast at the locations near me, not least because Costco seems like the only place that has pumps designed to easily stretch to either side of the car.

Forgot about those pumps, they're cool. Yeah I mean just driving to Costco for gas means going significantly out of my way

found this image, so not mine or my location, but this is what the gas lines look like 90% of the time i drive by our closest Costco (granted it's always early evening or weekends when I do, but still)

https://images.barrons.com/im-338770?width=1280&size=1.77777778

(fwiw, I initially felt bad about the thread derail, but remembered which thread this was and well, fuck him, Costco is more worthy of attention lol)

I find that even when the lines look like that they still move pretty fast.

Lots of local stuff at our stores, too, like Michigan honey or Manny's corned beef. We bought our TV at Costco, too (right before the pandemic hit, thank goodness), and they were so easy to deal with, and basically included all sorts of default warranties on top of the regular warranty. Tires, house plants, toilet paper, frozen seafood ... plus a more or less no questions asked return policy.

Anyway, fuck Bob Lefsetz, what a dork.

I always think it's funny when you (invariably) see someone checking out with, like – a crate of oranges, a bag of frozen chicken, a big box of crackers, and a giant-screen TV on a pallet.

A ten-gallon jar of mayonnaise

i don't know if they have these everywhere, but near me there's a Costco Business Center - it's kind of a different layout, lots more huge lots of stuff like mayo, ketchup, way more limited on consumer electronics, clothing, etc...the whole thing is for businesses buying stuff wholesale i think, anyway mine still has gas pumps and it's not nearly as crazy busy with regular folks

speaking as someone who used to sell products online through Costco, their hardcore fans/customers are the absolute worst entitled people I have ever dealt with in retail

no you cannot return your $15K solar system that you bought 8 years ago and let sit in your garage until it became obsolete, fuck off

(this being said, it does seem like a decent place to work?)

You can buy a Solar System at Costco? Someone tell Galactus.

A ten-gallon jar of mayonnaise

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux)

gotta duck when the shit hits the fan

I always think it's funny when you (invariably) see someone checking out with, like – a crate of oranges, a bag of frozen chicken, a big box of crackers, and a giant-screen TV on a pallet.

― stylized in all lowercase (morrisp)

i mean, i did a big shopping order this weekend... a bunch of clothes, 400 heartburn pills, and a "Fun Patriotic Honest Abe with Cotton Candy Brooch", with "a fun color palette of cotton candy pink and baby blue". (that color palette almost reminds me of something...) so that's probably me you're seeing at the costco.

You can buy a Solar System at Costco? Someone tell Galactus.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes)

if costco had life on it, i might find my wife on it

To clarify, it's the TV that I find funny... as if it's an "impulse buy" (I know it's not). Heck, if I was picking up a TV at Costco, I'd probably also grab whatever else we need.

sometimes you kind of have considered getting a new tv and it's walking through the front door of costco directly into that display of beautiful 77" lg oleds that triggers the purchase

a crate of oranges, a bag of frozen chicken, a big box of crackers, and a solar system on a pallet

Galactus sometimes likes a healthy snack between planetary meals... they never show that in the comics.

Does every Palestinian in Gaza support Hamas? OF COURSE NOT! But did we poll every Iraqi to find out whether they supported Saddam before we went into that country?

i...um...

And standing up for human life… Whoo-hoo! Aren’t you admirable, aren’t you taking a risk, saying you don’t want people to die. I never thought of that, how insightful, how innovative. No!