Fact Check Me: The Costco Thank You
Costco food isn’t food.
It’s a thank-you note.
It’s not there to impress you, brand you, or upsell you into a lifestyle.
It’s there to say:
You showed up.
You paid the membership.
You pushed the cart.
Here — eat. We made it the best we could, and we made sure you could afford it.
That matters more than people realize.
I was there with my kid.
We bought nothing.
Sat in the food court and ate hot dogs, pizza, poutine.
Fifteen bucks and change.
We talked politics — real ones, not slogans.
Why socialism keeps coming back.
Why conservatism only survives if you stop asking questions.
Then, seamlessly, anime.
Because kids don’t separate ideas the way adults pretend to.
Best time I’d had all day.
Around us was a whole quiet census of modern life.
A dad alone with his little boy, jacket standoff at full volume.
You could see it in his face — the moment before losing it.
But he didn’t.
We’re better than that now.
All I could offer was sympathetic eyes, and he knew exactly what they meant.
Two more dads.
No carts.
That’s the tell.
One with a tween, one wrangling two little kids.
Chicken fingers and fries held like weapons — nunchucks of survival.
Dad’s day energy.
Not brunch-dad.
Just get everyone fed and home without anyone crying dad.
I wondered where mom was.
Working late?
Finally off-duty?
Collapsed somewhere quiet?
Costco was probably all they could muster — and that was enough.
Two young guys, fresh from India, laughing too loud over absurdly large sundaes.
No kids. No rush.
Just sugar and conversation and time.
A mom across the way, visibly relieved her kid was hypnotized by whatever food was within reach.
It was late — too late for a young family to still be out, according to the imaginary rulebook.
But there they were anyway.
And nobody judged anyone.
Because Costco doesn’t ask much of you.
It doesn’t punish you for existing.
It doesn’t ask you to perform taste, wealth, or aspiration.
The hot dog is legendary not because it’s special —
but because it never betrays you.
Same price. Same size. Same promise.
In a world where every screen asks you to tip, upgrade, subscribe, and justify your presence,
Costco just says:
Here. Sit. Eat. You’re good.
That food court isn’t a failure of imagination.
It’s a commons.
A truce between exhaustion and care.
And for fifteen dollars,
I didn’t just feed my kid.
I got a conversation.
A moment.
A room full of people holding it together the best they could.
Fact check me —
that’s still worth something.