![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/IMG_04201.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0420\\"")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Our freezer is filled with pork chops, lamb chops, chicken breasts, all repackaged here at home into quantities of two.\u00a0 Fresh food is a little harder to manage.\u00a0 Two weeks ago, he came back with 5 pounds of limes \u2013 I don\u2019t think that I\u2019ve consumed more than 1 pound in my entire life.\u00a0 To help with the limes, he also bought a jumbo vat of pre-mixed margaritas, tequila and all.\u00a0 Even though I am a virtual teetotaler, I wanted to be a gamer, so I gallantly starting swilling a nightly margarita or two, but steadfastly drew the line when I started eying the margaritas as an alternative to a noon time iced lemonade.\u00a0 Limes![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/IMG_04191.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0419\\"")
<\/a> went on fish, guacamole, anything else we could think of, and we gave them away as door prizes, but despite these heroic efforts, a couple wizened old limes linger on in the fridge.<\/p>\nNick also discovered Costco was an ideal field trip for my father in his waning years.\u00a0 Dad would stand dumbfounded in the warehouse and shake his head and say, \u201cWho buys all this stuff?\u201d and then be even more amazed as Nick used rebates and coupons to buy him a CD player for virtually nothing.\u00a0 It was also a great place for exercise in the winter.\u00a0 There was no way that my father would ever stroll around a mall, but he was happy to wander through Costco, mostly looking at the electronics and marveling at the sheer volume of the merchandise.\u00a0 My father was also\u00a0too proud to use a walker or even a cane, but using a grocery cart for support as he toured Costco was the perfect solution.<\/p>\n
I had been to Costco briefly a few times before, but after the lime episode, I thought it was time to take a more focused field trip.\u00a0 As we drove up, I said, \u201cWhat don\u2019t<\/em> they sell here. \u00a0They don\u2019t sell cars do they?\u201d\u00a0 Turns out that you can buy a car, and a few were on display in the parking lot as we entered.\u00a0 Costco has established some a relationship with a local car dealer, and if you present your Costco card to the dealer, you get some sort of \u201cpre-arranged pricing.\u201d\u00a0 I envisioned the corporate staff of Costco brainstorming what other discount opportunities might appeal to a captive audience willing to be surprised and they came up with\u00a0coffins.\u00a0 They don\u2019t stock them at the store, buy you can buy them with a discount on-line.\u00a0 The website goes into great detail about the reliability of expedited shipping, barring \u201cActs of God,\u201d ironic, since this would be the reason you would need a coffin in the first place.\u00a0 You would think that coffins would be just the type of product that Before we went, Nick recommended that I take my seldom-used cell phone in case we got separated, but as I entered I realized that the better accessory would have been my binoculars cialisviagras.com<\/a>.\u00a0 While I use binoculars mostly for bird watching, when our kids were younger I found them to be essential when trying to identify the correct soccer field in a vast complex swarming with identically uniformed children.\u00a0 I felt the same way in Costco, and I needed binoculars to read the remote aisle markers and the upper tiers of the shelves.\u00a0 Costco on a I ran into a family that had succumbed to the lucky strike extra \u2013 an enormous stuffed plush dog that barely fit into the over-sized grocery cart.\u00a0 I foolishly asked the mother, \u201cDid you come to Costco intending to buy that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you kidding,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cWe saw other families coming out the store with one, and the kids just had to have one.\u00a0 Besides, I couldn\u2019t believe how cheap it was.\u201d<\/p>\n And that of course is the marketing genius of Costco \u2013 the stuffed animal was located right as you entered the store, and I am sure that this coveted impulse display spot rotates depending on the day of the week and the expected clientele.\u00a0 \u00a0I returned to Costco later in the week \u2013 the only item on the agenda was to take some pictures for this story.\u00a0 The stuffed animals were gone and replaced with a rack of bicycles.\u00a0 I have been using my husband\u2019s very lovely bicycle, but it is a man\u2019s bike.\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand why bicycles have sexual identities, but the bottom line is that I just don\u2019t like having to swing my leg over the back wheel to get on and off the bike.\u00a0 I suspect men feel the same way but don\u2019t want to be emasculated by riding the more practical chick bike.\u00a0 But the whole rack of women\u2019s bikes was the perfect impulse purchase.\u00a0 I was only able to resist temptation when I realized that the bike would not fit into my car.<\/p>\n I tried again to think of what Costco didn\u2019t sell.\u00a0 I asked Nick, \u201cCan you buy puppies at Costco?\u201d\u00a0 To me this is the quintessential impulse purchase that would be ideal for Costco.\u00a0 Twice I have been the victim of the impulse puppy when Nick took the kids to the pet store \u201cjust for fun.\u201d\u00a0 Predictably I got the call twenty minutes later, with everyone on the phone gushing about some puppy that was impossibly cute, and of course there was always another family ogling him, and oh, please, oh please, oh please \u2026.\u00a0 We now have two dogs, a testament to the success of the impulse puppy as I am most definitely not a dog person.\u00a0 Costco seems somewhat sensitive to their status as the soul-less big box store and makes an effort to stock some local items, such as local beer, and then there is the example of their relationship with the local car dealer.\u00a0 If they wanted to take this concept one step further, they could give up some of their immense space to a rotating collection of local nonprofits, like maybe a blood drive, or the volunteer Fair Trade Market store, and of course the local non-profit pet store, which is staffed by disabled adults.\u00a0 Given the success of the oversized stuffed dogs, I bet Nick that Costco would be selling puppies within the year.<\/p>\n Last weekend, Nick went off to Costco to buy a dehumidifier for the basement, and I was prepared to be surprised – and there it was on the counter, two pounds of baby bok choy, a \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Among Costco\u2019s most effective seductions<\/p>\n Is their claim that nobody offers more deep price **********.<\/p>\n This\u00a0\u00a0********** a problem for those shoppers who often confuse<\/p>\n The things that they need\u00a0with tthey\u2019ll never use.<\/p>\n When my husband went to a\u00a0********** here\u2019s what happened to him,<\/p>\n Instead of napkins and TP, he got a trampoline on a whim.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Answers:\u00a0 reductions, introduces, discounter<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: About 2 years ago, Costco caused a major fracas in our suburban community when they announced their intention to locate a store here. There was some effort to dress up the controversy as an environmental issue related to the number of gas pumps that were part of the store. Continue reading <\/a> other discount clubs, such as AARP, should offer their members, but only Costco is fearless enough to offer funerary supplies.\u00a0 Every time Nick goes into Costco he comments on their expanding services, such as gutters and health insurance.<\/p>\n<\/a> Saturday is a community event.\u00a0 Far from the impersonal big box, Nick always runs into people he knows.\u00a0 One time he met an acquaintance, who eventually became a client due to this chance meeting.\u00a0 Costco on Saturdays is also a popular family adventure.\u00a0 With a little effort, an entire family of kids can stitch together a free lunch by eating their way through all the store samples.\u00a0 There was some pretty tasty chicken, bratwurst, chips with dip, mango juice, brownies fresh from the microwave and popcorn.<\/p>\n<\/a> vegetable that has never been a routine part of our cuisine because our boring grocery store doesn\u2019t carry it.\u00a0 But unlike limes, bok choy seriously shrinks as it cooks.\u00a0 An overflowing frying pan reduces to a mere handful of yummy bok choy saut\u00e9ed with garlic and ginger.\u00a0 We are on day three, and I have no doubt we will be able to polish this off.<\/p>\nThe missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. like post, spot, stop) and the number of asterisks indicate the number of letters.\u00a0 One of the words will rhyme with the preceding or following line.\u00a0 Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.\u00a0 Scroll down for the answers.<\/em><\/h6>\n
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