Creme de la Costco

One of the topics of conversation at lunch yesterday was the shopping habits of the rich and famous. The Sunday Style section of the NYTimes described the sad state of affairs in DC, where the politically powerful have been spotted munching on the freebies at Costco. As was noted with some amusement in Tightening the Beltway, the Elite Shop Costco:

As a recent article in Vanity Fair lamented, the days of glamorous Washington dinner parties are long gone. Indeed, some hostesses today aren’t above serving Costco salmon, nicely dressed up with a dollop of crème fraîche.

The perennial joke in our office is that one of our LLWL* shops only at the Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop (which means she's only happy if she's paying "retail plus"), while I want to buy all our supplies at Costco (I'm the discount queen). Everyone else falls somewhere in-between.

I admit that I am the epitome of the bargain hunter. My idea of a fun time is to wander through yard sales, flea markets and thrift shops. I'm not ashamed to admit that most of my clothes come from consignment shops (the upscale version of a thrift shop), such as Revivals in Narberth. Our home is furnished with an assortment of antiques and thrift shop treasures, lovingly mingled together.

Costco is definitely my favorite, in the big box warehouse category. See, Yes, We Have No Bananas. A 2005 article on Costco in the Times sums up all the reasons why. In How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart, the piece noted that Costco combines high quality and low prices, yet also manages to provide fair wages and benefits to its employees. It's the place where cheap rich people shop (and then those bargain hunters like me).

For the neophytes, Jimmy Kimmel gives a lesson on how to shop at Costco:



*(LLWL= Lady Lawyers Who Lunch, a/k/a my officemates)

(Video via Laugh Lines, the NYTimes Humor blog).

Tags: humor, video, Costco