AMEN!

CostCo always, always, always depresses me. As does Walmart. And Target. And not because of any snobby "I want local organic produce" snit, but just because... there are no windows. And there are too many people. And it's all too big. And why do we need warehouse stores? And why am I shopping at warehouse stores? And why does this warehouse-store-complex look exactly like the warehouse-store-complex 2,000 miles away? Why am I here? Why why why?

Another Amen here -- I try never to go to Walmart in particular, because it takes forever to find anything and everybody there looks so SAD, parents yelling at kids, etc.

What was that Simpsons episode where the convenience store closes and the only other place to shop is a giant store? There was a banner strung across the top of the storefront that said something like, "We turn shopping into a baffling ordeal."

Some of it, though, may just be me being middle aged. 30 years ago I LOVED shopping, I LOVED shopping malls, and if there had been a Walmart where I lived I probably would have LOVED that too. Now I have much less energy and patience and I'm much more aware of the evils of consumerism.

Yesterday I bought a bunch of stuff at Shopper's Drug Mart (they were having a great sale so I stocked up on the things I use regularly) and I qualified for their cosmetic bag gift. It's this enormous quilted silver thing with a hot pink lining, and it was full of a lot of samples of perfume and skin care products and the like that will be a real chore to use up. There was a Justin Bieber perfume sample, for crying out loud. I went through them stripping away the excess packaging wishing fervently that I'd just told the cashier to keep it. I don't mind shopping so much when I'm just buying what I need and will use, but I hate stuff like this. Such wastefulness.

I love Costco. I love accomplishing the errand of stocking up on stuff so I'm not running around every week looking for toilet paper and snack food. I love that they're giving out snacks so I can have a little nosh while I shop. And knowing how well they treat their workers makes me proud to shop there.

I love Costco too. One trip there saves me a whole load of aggravation for weeks to come.

I've never been in a Walmart (and maybe not a target? Oh, no, the one in Brooklyn, once) so I can't really compare.

I love a big box, too, particularly Target, though the amount of choices can be overwhelming at times. Especially at the huuuuge ones out in the 'burbs, like the Super Target near my parents' house. Mom and Oliver and I went and it was a workout just getting around!

That's the way I feel about most sports, especially big-league stuff. So much time and effort and money being spent, on what?

This is a huge part of why I avoid shopping in-general. The excess. The marketing. The crowd. It's so overwhelming and depressing. Christmas is the worst. I haven't been in a mall at Christmas in at least a decade. The emotional overload and depression was just too much to bear. I'd wander into store after store, each one packed to the rafters with piles and piles and piles of nearly the same damned items and just gawk at the waste. The orgy of consumerism was just too much.

My wife and I go to our local Meijer every Saturday, to do the grocery shopping, and it's all I can do to weather it all without either curling-up into a comatose ball, or seriously injuring fellow shoppers.

I am pleased to report I already bought my first Christmas present :D Don't tell Oliver, it's a plastic piggy bank.

I love Costco too, although I'm fairly disciplined about what I buy there - primarily coffee beans, trash bags and things that aren't readily available in the UK, but which Costco imports.

I take credit for turning gaspode to the dark side. 'Pode's first visit to Costco with me: "OMG, look at this! I need this! And this! OMG! AND THIS!"

WalMart, on the other hand, has destroyed the little town in Ohio where my friends live. The old downtown area is a ghost town now. But WalMart also employs a lot of people in the town where otherwise there wouldn't be jobs for them. Some people I know who work there love it, others feel like indentured slaves but have no other options open to them.

In this small town, WalMart sells products that people would otherwise have to travel to the next town to buy. In a town with a fairly elderly population, and where people on fixed incomes are mindful of the rising cost of gas, being able to buy everything under one roof within a couple of miles of home has its advantages.

I love Costco but I am pretty careful to only go on weekdays. Weekend crowds trigger my fight-or-flight response. Though I grew up in a Big City, I now live in the country and am generally at greater risk of being trampled by deer than people. And I like that.

Costco: big tubs of plain Greek yogurt sharp cheddar cheese bacon butter Einstein Brothers bagels big bag of carrots for people, dog & horse treats dog kibble frozen mixed berries yum

I think it's fabulous that humans en masse have reached this plateau of productivity.

The Bear and I used to love shopping at Costco and Walmart. But . . . we just have enough stuff now. And I shop for most everything now online.

It was the bargain stores like Target that used to depress me. Not the consumerism, but the cheap quality and the poverty of a lot of my fellow shoppers and the grim tiredness of the store clerks.

I think in general it is a Very Good Thing that people can live well -- as well as medieval royalty -- on low incomes. Plentiful quality consumer goods at a decent price is a big part of that.

I've only been in a Walmart a handful of times and have never been in a Costco. I just get freaked out by the hugeness and the bright lights and noise and having to wander forever to find what you want. Even most supermarkets are too big for me. The only store that I go into with any regularity is Trader Joe's and ours is in an old post-office which makes it only slightly larger than your average 7-11.

90% of our purchases are online these days.

Big stores kind of freak me out, and I'm careful to do any mall shopping at odd hours, and with a clear plan for going to a couple of stores and then heading out quickly before I turn into a zombie with a headache.
I kind of liked Costco, but I live alone and it just isn't worth it to me. I end up buying huge amounts of things that go to waste, or I don't have the freezer/storage space for. It would be nice for some things, but not really worth the yearly fee.
The only store I really like going to is Trader Joe's (but at odd hours, again.)

I like Target, but Wal-Mart gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's really hard not to sound like a classist asshole when you comment on the people of Wal-Mart (as opposed to the People of Wal-Mart) but MAN, the people who work and shop there do not do anything to dispel the stereotype.

I think Target just does a way better job of making the experience fun as opposed to just WE ARE A GIANT FLUORESCENT BOX. Letting your employees wear their own red shirts, having more attractive carpeted displays, all that. I once stopped by for a later-evening trip and saw a bunch of the employees playing Ride The Cart through the empty aisles. (Maybe they're just brainwashed in my town. Wouldn't be the first time.)

I can count the number of times I have been to Wal-Mart (well, aside from college, when it was the only game in town) on one hand. There are reasons for that.

As for the mall itself... I refer to it as The Maul and consider it an anthropological experiment. I'm sure the people at The Maul think the same of me.

The excess. The marketing. The crowd.

Yeah, I only buy stuff that I always buy in other places for more money. I have the storage space, so thus far nothing has ever gone to waste from me buying in bulk.

I'm living comfortably on my Social Security Disability Fixed Income with the help of the Costco, among other "scourges of modern commerce": Amazon.com, Trader Joe's, Vons/Safeway with its club card that violates my privacy in exchange for big price cuts on things I usually buy, Target, the Food4Less warehouse that is (surprise!) locally owned (somebody bought four locations from Kroger, got to keep the name), there are even specific things I go to Walmart for... underwear: they're the only ones with my gargantuan size at a reasonable price, which says much about how they know their market. Of course, it helps to not be working and have LOTS of time to plan out shopping trips.

But this week, I got a new junkmailing from Costco of "Online Only Offers" and it - well didn't enrage, insult or disappoint me - just annoy me slightly. So much I can't afford and wouldn't want if I could... computers starting at $899, $749 camera, $1,999 living room set, bunk bed with dresser $1,399, closet organizer $399, outdoor furniture set $1,199, 'touchless' trash can $59 (yeah, but you still need to touch it to empty it) and of course an $849 cappuccino machine... then a page of mostly questionable nutritional supplements, a surveillance system with 4 cameras (and inputs for 4 more) for $850, 'standby' generator for $2,999, and TWO PAGES of 'Emergency Food Storage', from 30-day 1-person supply for $85, to over 8,000 servings of 'Gluten-Free and Vegetarian' food for $1,500 (guaranteed to last until Gluten-Free is totally out of style). Have 'doomsday preppers' become their target market?

Still, glad I can go into the physical store for a 2-month supply of bagels, sliced cheese (at half the price of supers), refrigerated salsa, frozen chicken breasts and lean burger patties, and a 4-bean salad that makes sure I eat SOME veggies... (and glad I have a freezer big enough to put much of it in).

And hey, the samples at Costco - it's the only place to shop while hungry, because you won't be when you're done. I don't even visit the 'Food Court' anymore, I just buy a package of the 1/4 pound wieners they use and the 'Gourmet Hot Dog Buns' (big enough to put my chicken breasts in) and eat them later... Still, the last time I went, I got a scare - the first food samples from the front of the store were Beefaroni (selling a 12-pack of cans) and Farmer John wieners (NOT the kind they serve at the Food Court)... it turned out they were handing out samples of almost every kind of sausage they sold (look out for the HOT links... forced me to try the Coconut Water, meh).

Chains & shopping in general make me depressed. I haven't been to a mall in easily 10 years if not more. We try as hard as possible to support locally owned bars & eats if we can. We do get paper towels & toilet paper in bulk once a month at BJ's, but even then it's get in, get out before the masses descend.

I have mixed feelings about this issue.

On the one hand, big crowded spaces do give me the heebie-jeebies and I'm not fond of the consumer society.

But I remember only too well a space of three years in my life where I was so financially strapped that I couldn't buy anything. The little bit of money I had went to groceries, utilities and rent.

It's awfully damned nice to be able to buy stuff you want and not just stuff you need, especially if you're accustomed to agonizing over every purchase over $20.

I can't stand Walmart or Costco, especially on the weekends, which is when my mother feels the need to go shopping. Target doesn't bother me as much, but usually we only go there on Thursday. There's just too many people and they're all screaming and small children underfoot and people with carts that are much too big. Ahhhh.

Amen, kinda. Ikea feels that way to me. My mother had a claustrophobic attack once and they got her out in a jiffy, so I know there are exits everywhere.

When the Boys were little and I was on my own, I used the hell out of the "shop online, pick up at the store" feature at Sam's. I'd even get the refrigerated stuff: milk, bacon, eggs, the whole lot. It actually cost more dollar wise, but the time it saved me was huge. About the only thing I saved money on was diapers and baby formula. When I was done with those, the kids were old enough to behave in the store, so I went to regular grocery shopping.

I never really got into the "hanging out at the mall with friends" thing. I'd go there to be alone. I'd get a book at WaldenBooks and eat something at the food court.

Oh my goodness, Ikea. I cannot even seriously contemplate entering an Ikea without starting to panic. It's like a giant rat maze to me.

And I don't know where all the commenters here live, but it looks like there might be a bit of an urban/suburban/rural divide.

I remember living in urban areas and being SUPER EXCITED about renting a car and going to Target, because they were so many more choices for way less money in one place than was usual in the small-ish city grocery or home stores.

Since living in more small-town areas, though, where the grocery stores and hardware stores are larger and cheaper, and where car ownership is necessary and therefore hitting two or three different stores in one errand run isn't a big deal, I've started avoiding the big box stores more strenuously.

I live in the middle of the city but you don't have to go far to hit big box stores here. There's at least two Walmarts and a Costco right outside the city limits. And there's a Target right in the middle of the city.

I work in a large city and live in a bordering suburban city. There are lots of choices. Costco and Sams Club etc. used to be fun for us because they are entertaining in many ways. The lines and the lack of need we have for All the Stuff these days is what deterred us from going to these and other big stores much any more.

Hmmm. Maybe it's just car vs. carless thing for me, then.

There's a massive new shopping plaza opening being built right now at the northern edge of the Junction neighbourhood here in Toronto. One of the Target stores that Canadians really haven't warmed up to yet will be its focal point, but there will be a lot of other large chains operating there.

Its name, I kid you not, is The Stockyards, ostensibly because there used to be a lot of slaughterhouses in this neighbourhood, although I think there's only a couple of chicken processing plants left now.

But the combination of the name and the FPS (first person shopper) promotional video makes me think that somewhere along the line, they hired Temple Grandin as a consultant.

Not having a car really changes the way you shop. The things I could do with a car!

Has Target changed their pro-life agenda?

The thing with Walmarts is for a disconnected area, they may actually be bringing in culture. It's not like we could obliterate them now, but by keeping up demand for their ethnic, environmental and vegetarian stock as common place-- I feel the need to check stats on this.

There is a huge difference in having transportation and having to carry stuff around. Also the crowds thing.
In a seething mass of humanity, I feel happily anonymous, while being stared at by speckled bits of eejits is a different story.

If you've never been away from the gluttonous display of a supermarket for any length of time, you may be inured to just how startling it is.

I'm genuinely amazed at what people think it's acceptable to whine about, which is almost always not having immediate gratification. "I shouldn't have to think or do anything! It should already be here!" On the other side, people use to hardship say nothing. It's equally infuriating with the same solution.

People are so often a disappointment. Then other people expect awards for not being openly disgusting.

At least in normal cities, some people have the notion to actively not be in the way. The kind of obliviousness that comes from never looking both ways before crossing a street or ever crossing a street bleeds out.

It's pretty uncommon to live carless in Pittsburgh even in the inner city. Not every city is New York.

Well, yes. Having never lived in New York, I am actually aware of that. I have lived carless in Boston, DC, and SF, though, so it's not like I'm extrapolating from only one data point.

I've occasionally thought about ditching the car and just depending on transit and ZipCar but really owning a car costs me so little money now that I've paid the thing off it wouldn't be worth it. It's less than $1000 a year for insurance, maybe $250 a year for gas since I drive so little and $100 for registration/inspection. A transit pass would cost me $1100 a year.