Yes there is Costco in England. 29 locations.
The closest one to us is in Thurrock, which is only 20 minutes away. So although I lost a lot of lovely things along way from New Mexico to England — Costco wasn’t technically one of them.
This is what happened.
January 4th, 2023.
We are headed to Costco for the first time in this new land.
When we pulled up— I noticed the same sign, same carts, and the same red vests on the employees. My heart quickens with excitement, causing my cheeks to flush.
Not many things had the familiarity of home, but this was looking very promising. I am lightly suppressing joy as we walk through the threshold.
The attendant scanned our membership card with her laser beam which beeped to alert her that we would have to go over to the Membership Counter.
I assured myself that this was but a tiny hiccup.
And in truth, we only spent about 15 minutes at the infamous Membership Counter. Yet I came away from this encounter feeling despair and fear — thinking that perhaps my dignity had been irrevocably injured.
The countess behind the membership counter was a short, middle-aged woman with short, grey hair. It is lame to disparage retail workers, so I’ll just say that she was short with me.
She looked down at her screen to tell me that the computer was telling her that my membership was invalid. Thus, I will have to apply for a new membership if I wanted to shop at this Costco more than twice a year as a “guest”.
A guest!!
The mood has now completely shifted along with the power dynamic. I was no longer in the “inner ring” of Costco members. I was a questionable applicant.
The first question of her verbal membership application interview was: What is your occupation?
Oh shit I’m unemployed.
I start panic fumbling through poorly structured sentences about how I’m between jobs temporarily at the moment here because you see I used to be an accountant at the ninth largest accounting firm in the United States of America then fell in love with this beautiful British citizen woman here standing to my left and I recently moved here for love your honor so I haven’t been able to secure any employment just yet.
Unfortunately my actual answer was more mumbled and less convincing.
*Please do remember that this is no ordinary warehouse associate I am speaking with. This top corporate brass on the cusp of becoming the regional vice director of Membership Services.
She does not entertain my excuse of a career.
Honestly she tells me their more looking for solicitors, trademen, doctors — you know — that sort of thing.
I was livid but I knew I had no recourse. I mean YES — it is true that “we Americans” built the damn company and possibly gave England 29 stores for tax purposes.
But!
There were no countrymen around to corroborate this !
So I walked away from the counter encounter defeated; with a deep bitterness which, evidently, has not fully dissipated.
However, after several months I acknowledged that unresolved anger had been wrongfully projected onto the British Isles and that this whole Costco experience was actually a pretty bland, unremarkable story. Nowhere near the gross corporate injustice (and xenophobia?) that I once thought it was.
Turns out— I was a bewildered, desert lad who felt far from home and deserted by God.
This revelation is confirmed by the stories’ ungripping conclusion — which is that we left the Membership Counter and walked right into the store holding the temporary day-pass that the short, middle-manager had given me.
And yeah, the rest of the Costco experience was good okay! it was everything you’d expect: large quantities of quality home goods and food and a great price.
THE POINT IS…
All that confused, Anglo-Saxon anger is resolved now. I have healed thyself.