COSTCO, COFFINS, & BOGIE

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Our standard poodle peed on our new goose down duvet. Stripping the bed (and the dog) I decided we needed a back-up duvet, so with my writer friend Kathleen Sharp I ventured into Costco.

Grabbing a shopping cart about the size of a Smart car, I immediately become paralyzed from sensory overload. I am one of those people who takes in color, noise, movement, objects, people with no filter and before I can process it, I turn into a zombie. Kathleen, who is on a major deadline, and even though she has decided to take the day off, is still moving with the speed of a frantic writer with an editor waiting in New York. She grabs the cart from me and plunges into the piles of pants, jackets, sweatshirts, jewelry, tomatoes, dog food, plasma screens, jockey shorts, sports bras, towels, massive jars of cashews, and yells, “They have cashmere sweaters.” The Zombie follows her.

We rummage through them with all the intensity of homeless women trying to find something warm to wear on the bitter cold streets. The awful paradox is not lost on me, and I remember that I’m not here for a sweater which I don’t need, but a king size duvet. (I’m going to kill the dog.)

We maneuver around hoards of people with carts filled to the brim with prepared sliced apples, giant bags of chips and packages of toilet paper that are taller than a five year old.

“Duvets!” Kathleen is triumphant.

I peer at them. There is only one kind and one price. They are filled with goose down from a country named Krackelstien. Krackelstien? Where is that?

I am reminded of the old Soviet Union, one car one price, one loaf of bread one price. I find the king size and put it into the cart. It barely fills it. (I wonder how standard poodle would taste for Thanksgiving dinner.)

“Books!” Kathleen announces, and I follow her to an area with vast tables stacked neatly with books. All the other areas of clothing, towels and food products look as if they’ve been ransacked. The book tables are in perfect order, not one of the titles is out of place. I watch as people pick them up, scan, then set them gently back in the proper pile. There have a reverence for the books. Of course they don’t need to rummage for size or color, and they could toss them back where they don’t belong, but they don’t.

Kathleen turns to me and says, “Sarah Palin’s America By Heart, has a one million print run expected to go up to two million.” She is in her reporter mode. “And then there is a book out by a dead man who wrote down his thoughts. Its weighs four pounds, is seven hundred and sixty pages long, and is published by a small press, University of California. It started with a print run of about 7000 in 8-point type and now they are up two hundred-fifty thousand and can’t keep it on the shelf.” She cocks a knowing eyebrow at me. “The dead man is Mark Twain.”

I study her to see if she trying to make some kind of political point. But she’s not. She’s excited. “Isn’t that great?”

“Between the Coasts. Middle America is buying books,” I say.

She nods, then states, “Vitamin pills, You stay here with the cart.” She marches off.

I happily obey, I’m in a safe place. I run my hands over the top of the books and wander into the video section. Here the DVDs have been treated like the cashmere sweaters. There is not the same reverence for them.

And then I see it—a white box titled HUMPHREY BOGART: The Essential Collection. Bogart is on the front of the white box wearing a white dinner jacket, black trousers, shinny black shoes, and black bow tie. His dark hair is combed back and his dark eyebrows are thick above is deep inset eyes. Hands casually in his pant pockets, he looks dangerously elegant.

I snap it up. Kathleen returns holding a bottle the size of an oil can filled with golden-colored Vitamin C pills.

On our way out I glance to my right and stop. Sounding like Kathleen, I blurt, “Coffins.” She is far ahead, plunging toward the exit. I stare at the coffin display. It is samples of wood moldings like you might pick out for the remodel of your kitchen. Except the colors are pink with painted gold trimming, walnut with painted silver trimmings, and one sample is as white as a wedding dress. There is something garishly sad and touching about these pieces of wood. Next to the samples are the urns. They look like a gift your dreaded aunt gave you for Christmas to put the plastic flowers in that she gave you the year before. My God, I think, you can go from cradle to grave in this store. Clutching Bogart to my chest and my receipt tightly in my hand, I run for the exit.

At home, opening up the Bogart collection I tell Bones that he can’t buy my casket or urn (I haven’t made up my mind yet) at Costco. (But he can buy the poodle’s there. The pink one with the gold trimming.) I glare down into her big brown innocent eyes. She’s hoping food will fall out of the video box.

His head goes back. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, look,” I take out an envelope from the box and open it. Out comes small sized copies of Bogey’s movie posters along with copies of telegraphs and inter-office communications for the movie, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. The first memo I read is from Henry Blanke to Don Page. It says:

Dear Don,

Please get busy immediately on having three different wigs made for Humphrey Bogart. You know that he has practically no hair left and that therefore these wigs will be necessary. Before you contact Perc Westmore, please take this up with John Huston as we need the wigs in three different hair lengths. Maybe Westmore can make some sketches of the different phases which we can then okay before ordering them. But since wigs take along time to be made, please get Westmore busy on this immediately.

It is signed Henry Blanke.

Then these words are printed on the memo stationary: VERBAL MESSAGES CAUSE MISUNDERTANDINGS AND DELAYS (Please Put Them In Writing).

I look at Bogart’s image on the white box. The rugged icon of noir is wearing his toupee. I smile. God, I love Hollywood.

I wonder if Costco has toupees.