Costco

Show me the United States.

If you asked that, I would take you to Costco. I was in the Palm Springs version of that store and it struck me, Costco perfectly sums up the United States: The aisles of plenty. Forty gallons of mayonnaise. Barbecues. A twenty pack of Campbells soup cans. Cases of beer. People dazed by their blessings, stunned half the time and the other half impatiently rushing around with their oversized shopping cart. I haven't shopped at Costco in a decade and was wandering around slack jawed, overwhelmed. A pepper shaker the size of my head. A thousand blister packs of Advil. Hundred inch televisions. This is the United States: So many choices, so much abundance; when you're not used to it the experience is overwhelming. This is why people need storage units when they have a five bedroom houses. This is why people drive enormous SUVs, to cart home their fifty pound bags of French fries and hundred roll packs of (awesome) Kirkland toilet paper.

Show me the United States.

If anyone ever asks you that, take them to Costco.

Oh, and check out my latest non-fiction book on Amazon. No Signal is about my first year of "vanlife."