Costco March 31, 2020 I just wanted to tell everyone about my Niles Costco experience this morning at 8 AM during the Senior Citizen’s hour of shopping. I arrived just before 8 to a surreal setting of senior citizens all with masks, gloves and shopping carts. With overcast skies and a slight drizzle it conjured up memories of bread lines during the Great Depression. (No I was not there but that is what I have heard!) The line snaked from the tire bays to the south and east to Melvina and then back to the entrance where the shopping carts are usually stored. There was a greeter there who let people in 30 at a time in order to keep our social distancing. At that point the line separated into 2 lines but then converged once in the store. Then all shoppers played follow the leader down the main aisle to an aisle by the bakery where the highway look a sharp left to go by mountains of water bottles. Most shoppers ignored this display and then made 2 right turns and beheld a fantastic amount of PT and TP! Helpful employees offered each shopper one package of each, I only needed the TP so I still had room in my cart for more good items. After exiting that area, we were on our own for our further shopping needs. We were reminded with certain signs about the distancing but it was a bit difficult when we would meet on 2 way aisles. The checkout went smoothly with the floor marked with yellow tape for distancing procedures. A helper emptied our carts on the conveyor and put our items back in our carts after being scanned. The conveyer belts were constantly being sanitized by several employees as were the shopping carts on the outside of the building. I would like to give a shout out to the managers of Costco and all of their helpful employees who provided us seniors with a well organized and executed plan for shopping. I won’t go so far as to say it was fun, but they made the shopping experience the best they could under the circumstances. So again, thank you Costco people for providing this great service for us seniors! Submitted by Tom Spenny.
Costco (Part 2) April 24, 2020 Hi again loyal readers and here is part 2 of my Costco experience. Yesterday I returned to Costco, this time with my wife who had some items to pick up at nearby Target. I arrived about 8:30 AM in order to potentially avoid the opening crowd and long lines. I was able to go right in the front door, showed my card and immediately was able to begin shopping for all those good items needed for stay at home existence. The store was not overrun with customers and we were all able to keep our social distancing. And it did seem like all the shoppers were true seniors or others for whom Costco had dedicated the early shopping hours. So all went smoothly and I did the self checkout using a debit card. My wife and I then reconvened in the parking lot and went home to put away our precious purchases. Then I noticed that my hearing aid was not in place where is should be and a big search ensued. With no success in finding it, I remembered struggling with taking off my face mask as I was getting back into the car at Costco. I had a sinking feeling that the straps on the mask may have yanked the hearing aid off and maybe it had fallen on the ground. So I crossed my fingers and headed back to Costco. The lot was more full by now since it was past the usual opening hour of 10 AM. I found where I had previous parked and lo and behold, there was the lost hearing aid sitting on the ground between 2 parked cars, just waiting for me to find it. So I guess I could say, “all’s well that ends well”. Then my final observation was that there was a fairly long line of shoppers with carts waiting for their turn to get into the store. So once again, thank you Costco for providing us seniors special hours to do our shopping! Submitted by Tom Spenny.