Costco is hardly the sort of place to influence an epiphany. And Barney Barnstable was hardly the sort of person to have an epiphany, much less one in Costco. Barney Barnstable had always been an unassuming man. He lived, breathed, and watched PBS in utter obscurity. Apart from when he registered to vote every year, he never led much of an exciting life. He didn’t enjoy sports aside from bocce, and he never ate vegetables that had spots upon them. Mr. Barnstable, shopper number 24683567 at his local Costco, was very happy living anonymously in ugly cable knit sweaters.  

The day was Thursday the eighteenth of September. The Costco which was located off of the intersection off of the street where five people had gotten into the car crash that the neighborhood had talked about for a month was bustling as bustling could be on a Thursday afternoon. Out of ten registers, seven were open, and five people were managing these seven registers. There were approximately 350 people and 23 children in the aisles, with 52 people in the lines to checkout. Five people were waiting in line at the pharmacy and two people had caused a spill on aisle 12. Barney Barnstable was looking for economy sized packs of bottled water, and the manager of the electronics section was firing an intern for downloading movies illegally. All in all, nothing was out of the ordinary. All of the 46 florescent lights were working in their 11.5 rows. No windows were open, not unusual considering there were no windows. Every sign happily proclaiming a sale was gleaming and clean; unmarked by children’s markers escaped from the arts n’ crafts section.

Gina Gable’s marriage anniversary was May the 28^th. Every year she planned for that date beginning February 1^st and ending only upon the date of her nuptials. This event, which added something else to do in her busy life as a housewife, gave Gina Gable something to look forward to, something more to be in control of, and something that she could use to boost her experience in event planning for that coveted spot as neighborhood events planner in her community. Along with her two children Greta and Georgey, Gina Gable was shopper number 87654226 at her local Costco; which she perused intently from February 2^nd to May 26^th. This year, her chosen theme was Antarctica. She had been alphabetically going through a list of themes from a big book called, “The Book of 1000 Themes” and this year was the eighth. Being that it was a rather momentous anniversary, growing close to a decade of marital bliss, she reasoned that she could very well accent her theme with a white dress and skipped Anguilla in lieu of icecaps in the punch bowl.

Gina Gable walked up and down the aisles, Blackberry in hand, to take stock of the products she would need for her event and to test whether or not she had phone service “everywhere.” Apparently, she did. She called over Greta and Georgey, who had been most happily engaged in coloring on the various signs and chasing each other down the aisles shrieking. The manager nearby had developed a slight twitch in his right eye as he watched them knock over a display of canned brownies. He stared nervously as they sprinted down the twelfth aisle towards their mother, sending boxes of dehydrated ice cream skittering and knocking early season miniature pumpkins spinning on the linoleum.

Kati Kaminski was the local beauty queen in her town two years running before she left for college. While she was unfortunately forced to give up her modeling dream due to vigorous classes and lack of true motivation, she still participated in an amateur pet show that had featured her puppy Wiggles in both “Best Swimming” and “Most Fuzzy.” She was number 3546789786 in the customer roster at Costco, where she dragged her fiancée Klaus Kristin with her to buy fancy pet food for her puppy and mocktail juice for her reading club. As she pushed around her cart surreptitiously around the store, pointing at items for Klaus to put in the cart, Kati held tight to the oversized bag where she kept her puppy. Wiggles was clearly not allowed in Costco, as he tended to get a little excited and hide in clothes, however Kati didn’t feel he ought to be left in the car, and Klaus was pretending he hadn’t noticed. Kati inspected the cart as Klaus put things in; making sure he didn’t try to grab an economy-sized box of fruit snacks like last time. They’d been eating fruit roll-ups for a month, and after Kati found out Wiggles couldn’t eat them she stopped eating them too. Klaus hadn’t. Sometimes she even found wrappers under the couch cushions.

Tanya Trenton was an “artiste” who enjoyed painting, anti-war protests, and vegetable smoothies. Her paintings, made out of the different foods she found around her house, were mainly enjoyed by those who could afford sealed glass cases to keep them fresh, and those who had little children and wanted art that could disguise whatever their offspring threw upon it. However, Ms. Trenton does not approve of this misuse of her creative talent and thus quit the neighborhood association in protest of her neighbors’ “shocking atrocities.” She was shopper number 87654357 at Costco, where she bought crates of vegetables, fruits, and cheese puffs.

Ms. Trenton was at the moment engaged in switching around produce. Last time the manager had asked her not to, but she found it vital to her artistic process and thus who could argue with that? She set a squashed mango into a carton next to a pear that had seen better days and stepped back to take a critical look at her creation. She found that mangled fruit was better for her “creative expressions” and it was cheaper as well. Pasting parts of electronics to furniture was quite draining to the pocketbook of a free spirit. Ms. Trenton frowned as she walked down the next aisle and found little pumpkins all over the floor. It was ridiculous how people let their children run around like little animals. She bent down and picked up a particularly gnarled gourd, sniffing it, and then haphazardly tossing it into her cart. Seeing a frazzled looking manager talking urgently into his walk talkie in the next aisle over, she scooted away to find a smoothie with the proper balance of antioxidants and red 40.

Mark Morison was a professional at being friendly. He praised himself upon his good looks and charm daily. Sometimes he praised himself more than once a day. His girlfriend, Patricia Peterson, never took him seriously. She doubts anyone could have that big an ego. However, Mark was one of the people who did. He was number 3456765 at Costco, where Patricia Peterson brought him to buy packs of toilet paper and wastepaper baskets. He continually ruined the ones he had by putting gum in them.

Sulking charmingly through the aisles, Mark followed Patricia Peterson around like a child missing out upon hours of time spent video gaming. In fact, that was exactly what Mark was feeling at the moment. Patricia Peterson had called just called him a few hours earlier to tell him that they would be spending their afternoon at Costco because as she put it, “You’re a bit of a mess and I think I’d rather you weren’t.” He had been previously planning to spend that afternoon, and much of the evening engaged in a devastating battle to finally complete the thirtieth level of a game that Games and Gamers magazine had rated “A video game to seriously pump your gaming resume with.” Mark had coincidentally fully intended to pump his gaming resume so that on Friday night he could relay every moment to his friends over drinks. However, Patricia Peterson had planned for them to go to the theatre for some culture that night. Using his most persuasive tactics, he tried to explain to her in the car ride over to their local Costco that she ought to be happy that he was making plans and going through with them, but she claimed it didn’t count because his plans had nothing to do with either her or the theatre. So as he followed her through the feminine hygiene section, trying his best to act as though he weren’t in that particular section at all, he was only occasionally cheered by the glances of his reflection that he sometimes saw in the glass display cases of shampoo and body wash.

Mr. Barnstable could not seem to find the bottled water. Signs proclaimed the existence of this commodity; however all he had found were plentiful cartons of Juicy Juice. He took a deep breath, and realizing with a degree of annoyance that he was obviously not breathing fresh air due to the lack of windows, stopped trying to take in so much at once. Feeling a bit surrounded by the perky signs all around him that took the place of assistance by a real person, Mr. Barnstable headed instinctively towards the nearest customer service booth. There he encountered a bubble-gum chewing girl who looked about as happy about the job she was doing as Mr. Barnstable was about the lack of sufficient bottled water. Engaged in helping a woman figure out why the digital camera she was looking at was flashing when she took a picture, she blew large bubbles and spoke in a fast drawl. In speech peppered by a great deal of “you know?” she turned the camera on and off before the astonished eyes of the aged woman who obviously didn’t get out much. With a sigh of resignation, Mr. Barnstable trudged away, past aisle twelve where a manager was standing watch over a junior employee sweeping up pumpkins and ice cream packets. Ignoring his patronizing smile, Mr. Barnstable moved on and looked up at the ceiling where the neon white light above him flickered and hummed in a disinterested way. Wandering aimlessly with an empty cart, he found himself in a section covered in Clementine crates and fruit juice. Pulling over an empty crate, he sat down upon it and leaned against the cranberry juice.

Gina Gable was feeling the strain of planning her big event this year. The behavior of her children aside, (Really, they were big enough to make their own choices, why did the managers seem to blame her for what they did?) she couldn’t find any items that corresponded with her theme and were suitable matches for the white dress she planned to have custom made. Furthermore, none of the staff would help her because they were too busy glaring at her children and hoping they would run out of energy soon, although it seemed to Gina Gable they were merely too lazy to assist her in her hunt for white ginger.  

Kati Kaminski could feel Wiggles becoming a little restless. Small lumps were sticking out of her bag in odd angles and strange sounds seemed to be coming out the top. Klaus, doing his best to ignore this situation, was intently studying the manual of a DVD player he’d seen in a magazine. Putting a treat inside the bag, Kati held it close to her and pulled Klaus with her to scurry down the aisles to find mocktail juice.

Furiously beating together two pineapples to see what sound they made, Ms. Trenton considered recording the sound her vegetables made when they hit the canvas. Pineapples for instance, were prime examples for the great squelching sound they made. Peaches though, would be a prime subject. Throwing one pineapple in her cart and another at the wall, Ms. Trenton set off, pushing her cart at a speed Greta and Georgey Gable would be hard pressed to imitate as they shot up and down aisles.

Mark stood still in the electronics section, watching his every move from the monitors that were rigged to show the screen resolution of every TV ever invented. Trying on each of his charming smiles for the camera, he was in the midst of his devil-may-care look when Patricia Peterson pulled him off to the frozen food section for corn and baby carrots. No matter; he could see himself just as well in the glass display cases.

By this time, Mr. Barnstable had laid the foundations for a successful fort constructed of Clementine crates. It was rather extensive, located in the center of the store, yet hidden among juice and mocktail ingredients. Spying an abandoned cart nearby which was apparently being used to transport large boxes of Cheerios from one end of the store to the other, Mr. Barnstable grabbed it and built the walls of his castle higher with dried cereal. He’d already brought in supplies to last him a while; milk, cheese, bread, and a few perfect vegetables that Ms. Trenton hadn’t bothered to try and crush. Fortifying his creation with orange juice cartons so as to match the orange themed décor that Clementine crates and Cheerios boxes provided, Mr. Barnstable surveyed what he had done with a certain sense of pride.

~To be continued.

Gina Gable had found the perfect tent that she could use to shade the party should it rain or snow unexpectedly. It was white, and according to the box, flew white streamers from every available place. She walked around clutching it for a moment to ask a sales representative how large of a scale it was, for she did have a large garden, and of course her whole neighborhood did come every year, with the exception of Florence Fenton because of the year that her children had attempted to spike the punch, an unfortunate occurrence really, when she saw the fortress that Mr. Barnstable had built. Looking out through a window at her, he waved, and as she waved back, her course of action was set. She trotted as fast as her stilettos would allow her to the party planning area, and pulled the tent out of the box. It was glorious, simply a marvel. She called Greta and Georgey over, along with the strollers that they had been using to zoom around, and set to work putting up the piece de résistance of her anniversary party.

Kati by this time was getting a little frantic. Wiggles had transferred over to Klaus, who was carrying him with a certain sense of anxiety about his bladder movements. The puppy, however, was most avidly earning his given name. Still pulling Klaus around, Kati was nearly run over by Georgey, while Klaus had to do a little maneuvering to avoid Greta. Staring astonished as the children in their stroller chariots wheeled away, Kati would have missed Mr. Barnstable’s orange stronghold had Klaus not turned her in its direction. Gaping at it, Kati looked around her to wonder who else had noticed this thing, and saw the rising turret of Gina Gable’s white streaming tent. It made a very striking image as well; to set off its highlights, Gina Gable had placed fans around it to send her streamers fluttering in a most majestic way. At that point, Kati walked quickly over to the camping section, and before Klaus could raise an eyebrow, picked out a rather nice looking tent; the kind with three rooms in it and a little chimney offered in a mail in rebate. She pulled it out of the box, and looked at Klaus, giving him ample time to raise an eyebrow and look surprised, both of which he did. After he’d done those things, he shrugged and began to help her set it up in a rather nice area in the bakery section.

Ms. Trenton had set herself up an odd looking cage of sorts out of the oversized shopping carts in the produce section. Despite some opposition from a manager and two employees, she managed to bring her loot to her chosen area, and locked her “oppressors” in the employee lounge. As she stuck bruised fruit to the wheels of her carts to discourage the interrupters of her peace, she busied herself simultaneously with knocking peaches against her head to test the sound that made. After using the bicycle locks pillaged from the sports section to lock her front door, Ms. Trenton hopped into her spare shopping cart and using a long pole formerly used to reach higher placed products, punted her vehicle down various aisles in search of canvas and sound equipment.

Patricia Peterson was in a bit of a panic. She had reached the camping section, to realize that various other shoppers had reached the nicest tents before her. After wresting a cozy two room away from a woman in oversized spectacles, she found a bit of luck in that she was able to fix herself up a spot close to the ingenious customer who’d declared himself the count of the camping section (which did have a rather nice ring to it), though it was widely accepted that the shopper who’d built the lovely orange manse was the monarch. At this point, Patricia Peterson had given up upon Mark. He’d capriciously decided to situate himself in the section with the most mirrors; the better to view his own reflection, and the time that she had summoned a stroller and went to visit him had not gone well. He didn’t want to move in to her tent, or even near it, and never even complimented her upon her luck in finding the situation she had. Barely even glancing at her aside from trying to halfheartedly charm her into moving to be closer to him, he’d otherwise expressed no interest in their relationship any longer, and thus she planned on setting her sights upon the count, who appeared to be very eligible indeed.

As Mr. Barnstable peered up over the top of the walls he had built, he was greeted by an interesting sight. Highways had been set up in the aisles, and strollers transported shoppers visiting relatives or friends around. The camping section had become a metropolis, where people did business with coupons, and watched the stock market on calculators from the special limited-time-only back to school section. Surrounding areas had developed suburban roots, ranging from the house that Kati and Klaus had set up in the bakery, to the McMansion that Gina Gable had created with her enormous white tent, to the contraption that Ms. Trenton had set up far away from civilization; covered in fruit and vegetables.

The employees stood no chance. The gum-chewing girl in the customer service desk was left cowering under a box, four employees and three managers were locked in the stockroom, and the cashiers at the registers had been shut in various bathrooms. Everyone else had fled, and the shoppers didn’t care enough to try and find them. They were much too busy.

Gina Gable continued planning for her anniversary party. Now that she was in such an advantageous location, she used it to her immense benefit; strolling her lands frequently in order to peruse the options that she had in planning her soiree. Staying with her previous plan of an Antarctic theme, she often visited her neighbors in the clothing section, much to their vast annoyance, as she insisted upon trying everything on, and the fitting rooms were at the time being used for town hall meetings. She had entertained some hope of getting to know her neighbors Kati and Klaus better, however decided against it because she disliked Wiggles and felt that their wedding was in danger of overshadowing her own party.

Kati had convinced Klaus that they should get married in their tent, as it smelled quite pleasant in the bakery section, and they could get a nice wedding cake quickly. They set a date for later in the next week, and Kati occupied herself with using mobile phones to phone neighbors and visiting the party planning section for ideas, though after a few hours she stopped calling upon Gina Gable when she dropped by. Klaus used this time to try and get the mail in rebate to surprise Kati with the nice chimney that had been advertised on the box. He also took long walks with Wiggles, who seemed to be enjoying himself without the presence of any other animals, and felt terribly happy to be in charge of such a large domain.

Ms. Trenton by this time was left to her own devices, except for the occasional curious neighbor who wondered what that queer sound was. Once they had discovered she was throwing fruit against the walls, and sometimes against people, they usually left, although her art was widely agreed to be rather amazing and introspective. She enjoyed a lucrative reputation with this, drawing in many people to see her art, and then happily pelting them with fruit and recording the various sounds. For instance, one day she hit a rather large man with an artichoke, the video of which became an instant sensation, despite the lawsuit he attempted to file against her for wrongful pelting of fruit.

Patricia Peterson was now seeing the count of the camping section with some success, and dreamt of one day becoming the countess, though she was a little dubious of his lackluster campaigning policy. She and Mark didn’t keep in touch; the last she’d heard of him he had been going out with the gum chewing girl from customer service. She didn’t doubt that she wasn’t going out with him merely to try and blend in with the locals, and found it disgraceful, but thought it rather crude to spread rumors. As it happened, she was right. Mark had found himself someone to continuously laugh at his terrible jokes, and to let him do whatever he wanted, including playing video games and admiring himself in the mirror; sometimes both at once.

Barney Barnstable, having been cordially invited to attend the wedding of Kati Kaminski and Klaus Kristin, planned to be present. He was outfitted in a lovely polo the shade of his house, with pleather shoes to match, and he found himself mildly excited that he should be going out to mingle with people he didn’t know. Strolling along the boulevard by the house and home section, watching people doing laundry in the fountains and quietly sitting on the porches of houses formerly known as garden sheds, he felt rather peaceful indeed. Walking past the employee stockroom, where peeved faces peered out of the window at him, he even tossed a cereal box coupon their way, neglecting to remember that cereal box coupons were rather light and as such didn’t quite follow the pattern at which one tossed them. (The coupon in question actually ended up in the soup of a businessman just sitting down to lunch. Being that he wasn’t very fond of artichoke soup, he used the coupon to get some cereal instead, and because of his good mood, made three very important business deals in one afternoon.)

~ To be continued.

Barney Barnstable had some very interesting thoughts as he sat in the dressing room cum pew during the wedding of Klaus Kristin and Kati Kaminski. He had the obligatory reflection of how beautiful the bride was, how terrified the groom was, how wiggly the puppy was, and various other sundries that inevitably cross one’s mind during a particularly good ceremony. He then had some less interesting yet still important to posterity thoughts of whether or not other guests were crying and what flavor the cake looked to be. Then the truly interesting thoughts began to cross his mind. He thought of his castle, he thought of the cat he had pondered briefly about getting, and he thought of all the wonderful things he had found in Costco, cats not included. Suddenly he found himself wandering towards the entrance of the dressing room, and while people were at that point in time occupied with the wonderfully edible decorations set up by Tanya Trenton, he walked out. As he wandered down the aisles, passing his Clementine colored castle lit up by florescence (for it was now around evening time) he smiled to himself as he realized how very nice a goldfish would look sitting at the door wait for him. And to think that for all that time he had been thinking about a cat astounded him.

Barney Barnstable reached the automatic doors of the Costco, and as if they had seen him coming (which they had) they opened. A small draft of fall air chilled the uncovered area between his shoes and the hem of his pants.

Kati and Klaus Kristin were wondering why people were throwing cheerios, but decided to disregard it. Leading Wiggles by a white ribbon, Kati glanced at Barney Barnstable standing by the door and pulled Klaus over. They stood a few feet behind him for a few minutes and merely stared outside. Then Gina Gable, vindicated for her lack of planning in the wedding, stood to dramatic effect by their side, and slowly the other shoppers did the same. They stood as if they were a group of people of much greater significance than they were, and they stared as if they were looking at something of much more significance than it was. Then Barney Barnstable stepped forward, and was hit in the face with a full blast of air. He took a deep breath, and stepped forward again, realized it was really windy out, and walked back inside. As the populace looked on, he ran back to the aisles and disappeared among the soup. The crowd stood for a few minutes, looking quite confused, and then a few began to peer towards the door curiously. Before they could get far, Barney Barnstable reappeared, carrying his coat. He slung it over his shoulders, and walked resolutely outside. The crowd followed him, deciding in unison that this was much more interesting than going back for their coats. As they followed him, they looked around them confusedly, and then looked at Barney Barnstable. He looked at them, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a pair of keys. Walking over to a dowdy looking Volvo, he put the keys in the lock, and opened the door of the car. In time that seemed like slow motion merely because Wiggles was wiggling and he didn’t want to hit him, Barney Barnstable drove out of the lot, put on his turn signal, and merged into the left lane of traffic. Patricia Peterson gaped with the rest of the crowd, and then walked towards her own car. Kati and Klaus took each other’s hands and followed Wiggles over to their car. Wiggles was very excited. He had a toy waiting in the car that he was particularly fond of.

The rest of the crowd began to disperse in a life changing sort of way. They got into their cars, adjusted their side window mirrors, and wiped the accumulating dust off of the dashboard. In a few minutes, the parking lot of the Costco was empty. No trace of the occupation was left but a lone Cheerio box sitting by the self opening doors.

~ The End.

“And what are you going to do with your life?” her mother asked, folding her arms and staring her down.

“Maybe I’ll write.”

“Write? That’s not practical. You have to do something real.”

“Well then maybe I’ll write, chew up the papers, then digest them, paint them red, mount them on a stand and charge people exorbitant amounts of money to look at them.”