A Moveable Feast

Dear Laney,

Let me tell you about an exciting new discovery you made today - to be honest, I'm surprised it took you this long to piece it together:

Those sweet ladies in the hairnets at Costco exist solely to GIVE YOU FOOD.

And not just any food, but delicious, Laney-sized food.

As we rounded the corner past the dog food, there was a nice Sample Lady holding up a slice of Tillamook cheese. So you did the shriek-and-point, probably similar to what Columbus did when he "discovered" America. I asked for a sample, which was perfectly ridiculous, since you eat about a pound of Tillamook a day, and it's not as if you had forgotten what it tastes like.

Once you cracked the Costco code, you wanted to stop at every Sample Station: cheddar cheese, granola bars, mashed potatoes, tuna salad on saltines, and towards the end, Activia yogurt (and may I say, the LAST thing your system needs these days are "probiotics," whatever the heck those things are).

Let me tell you how screwy and Southern I am: In all of the hundreds of times I have shopped at Costco, I have never before tried one of their samples. Mostly because I knew I had no intention of buying the product, and so to take a sample would just waste the Sample Lady's time and be an abuse of the system. Crazy, I know. Welcome to Georgia, please tip your server.

You don't seem to have this kind of hang-up, and are certainly making up for my lost time.

As I type this, you are upstairs, sleeping off your 3000-calorie shopping trip.

Good work.

Love,

Mom