My cupboard is loaded with gigantic bags of chips. Pita chips, potato chips, tortilla chips. My fridge is dominated by super-huge tubs of dips. Hummus, salsa, guacamole. There's a 3-pound block of cream cheese in there. 3 pounds of cream cheese. What the...
This Sunday is, of course, Super Bowl Sunday. (It is also, according to an article on NPR, National Porn Sunday, which isn't nearly as exxxciting as it sounds: hundreds of churches across the nation will be showing a video of current and former NFL players speaking out about how pornography has disrupted their lives. Seems there's a porn epidemic in this country: according to Craig Gross, whose sermon will be part of the video, "The statistics say that 48 percent of Christian families are dealing with the issue of pornography in their home. I would say the other 52 percent are just unaware of it being an issue in their house." That means every one of you Christians reading this has an issue with pornography!! But I digress.) The Green Bay Packers will meet (and hopefully defeat) the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dallas, and Alex and I are hosting a gathering here in Seattle, as he will be unable to step away from the computer, and it's no fun to watch the Super Bowl alone. Especially when it's the biggest day of the work year! When he lived in Vegas, he'd always go to some big VIP party hosted by one of the casinos. But last year in Jersey, Alex watched it solo, and while I felt bad for him, I didn't feel bad enough to sit by his side, oh no. I headed to Astoria to watch the Saints and the Colts with a group of people who don't really like football, but do love to shout about it one day a year. (I think the highlight for all of us was that Betty White Snickers commercial. Pure advertising genius.) This year, we're gonna bring the people to Alex. Which means, party food! Which means, Costco membership!
I headed out the other day to do some shopping, and I figured I might as well stop by and see if a Costco membership might make sense for me. After all, we're not only hosting a gathering, which requires massive amounts of chips and salami (at least, that's what I tossed into my cart), but we are soon moving to a new apartment, and for the first time since we left W 110th St back in 2008, the apartment we're moving into will not be furnished. There will be no dishes, no linens, no pots and pans and cleaning supplies and all the other stuff we've been provided with over the past few years. That means there's a lot of shopping coming my way. And I figure, why not do some of it in bulk? I mean, 36 rolls of toilet paper may be overkill for a household of 2, but it's one less thing to think about over the next however-many-months it takes to go through. (If there are trees in the lobby of our new home, you can expect to see them TP'd come Mischief Night.) Okay, most likely, I won't have a whole lot of use for bulk shopping in the years to come. But as I perused Costco's never-ending aisles, I found myself wondering: is a 15-piece bakeware set enough? Or should I go for the 22-piece set, for only 20 dollars more? I do like to bake, and maybe I'd do more of it if I had more cookie sheets. And how about that food processor! I've always wanted one, and this 18-pound bag of onions would have so much more usefulness if I could puree half of it. A gym on a door? I don't even know what that means, but the man on the packaging is totally ripped, and I'm sure there will be a door in my new home. Oooh, a gun safe... I don't have any rifles, but that price seems too good to pass up, there must be something I can store in there. If not, I can buy something at Costco! And, wow, there's a whole section of books and DVDs and bean bag chairs and...
By the time I made it to the food aisles, I was worn out. Which made those huge bags of lil' smokies and 3-pound tubs of mozzarella balls so easy to choose. After all, they were giving out samples! I ate my weight in samples, of mini muffins and rice chips and madras lentils and tabasco cheese (I'm not making that flavor up), and it was only my adherence to a no-red-meat-or-the-other-white-meat policy that kept me from sampling the beef empanadas and the pork nuggets and the salami wraps and the beefy cheese balls. Standing in the check-out line, my stomach was doing back flips, not the happy kind that give me a giggly roller-coaster dizziness, but the kind that make me wish I wasn't a 20-mile drive from my apartment.
This Super Bowl gathering is gonna rock! You know why? Cuz I'm gonna wraps bricks of cream cheese in crescent roll dough and bake it til golden! I'm gonna serve mini chicken snausages on toothpicks! I'm gonna make a dozen little pizzas! And serve tall boys of PBR! (I'm told that's what the kids like to drink these days.) And come Monday morning, I'm gonna be wishing that I had shopped in a non-bulk store, because I'm most likely gonna be looking at a fridge full of food that should only be consumed while watching a football game. Ugh. So, guess what? You're invited to my place for brunch on Monday! I'm gonna be serving cream cheese on potato chips and pepperoni with hummus and salami-wrapped almonds and cream cheese on other stuff and...
No comments:
Post a Comment