thank you, costco

something monumental happened in our apartment this weekend, and i have costco to thank for it.

waaaay back in november 2006 i was a little newlywed trying to settle into my first married apartment. naturally, one of the first steps to becoming my own real person involved getting a costco card. one night brandon and i drove to the marina del rey costco, our closest one (conveniently located so that you have to drive by tito's tacos to get there...mmm) and set ourselves up with a costco account. that night i'm pretty sure we bought three things: toilet paper, granola bars and fruit strips.

i'm also pretty sure that's about all i ever buy when i go there. in retrospect, getting the card was a lot better than actually using it -- what use do two people have with 96 ounces of peanut butter or a slat full of peaches? those things go bad in our house before we're able to eat them all. granted, it is nice to have the card to get gas or to go on hot-dog-and-churro dates (still a favorite activity from our provo days...one of our first unofficial dates was to go get hot dogs between classes), but i don't really buy anything there unless it's something i find myself buying ALL time time at the grocery store (i.e. granola bars, bottled water, etc.)

as a side note, that was also a big night for us because i got my first ticket. i was driving down washington blvd. in culver city and ran a red light (something i'm known to do) -- and saw a flash. three weeks later i got a nice little $400 ticket in the mail, complete with photos of my car, license plate and my happy naive face behind the steering wheel. last time i ran a light in culver city, i'll tell you that much.

but i digress. so please note -- in november 06 i bought a 36-pack of toilet paper. we used the last roll from that pack on SATURDAY, july 5, 2008. almost two years! thank you costco for allowing me to ignore mundane household purchases for years on end.