Awkward Moments at Costco

Clearly these people needed some comedy relief and I was the one to bring it.

Already bored AF, I was going to talk to someone while standing in line with the surplus of humorless shoppers...to get in to Costco at 9:00 on this April Covid morning.

Ugh. How did I not remember that if you come early, you wait in line? (This is a pandemic-related one-time mistake like making a mask from YouTube with a white t-shirt and rubber bands and looking like you have a giant maxi-pad across your face.)

So I’m thinking, “I’m funny. I like talking to people in the store, and I regularly make them laugh.” I’m all over this.

I spot a couple exiting the warehouse walking through the parking lot toward us; top of the cart chock full of Kirkland everything-under-the-sun. And on the bottom (I think it sparkled a little), the mega-pack, the bad mamma-jamma...the 30 roll bale of Charmin crack. The pandemic drug of choice. They scored. I see no other baskets with toilet paper leaving the store.

There's a woman and her husband in front of me. I need to make eye contact. So I can make a joke and they laugh and we bond. It's a silver-lining Covid thing. Others hear and laugh, we sing Kumbaya, and the world is a better place.

Eye contact. Come on woman. Look. At. Me.

She did just in time.

I point to the toilet paper at the bottom of their cart and say, “Showoffs!”

I waited for the laughter and after two long, uncomfortable seconds, she said, "Scuse me?"

Gaaah! Nothing is funny if you have to repeat it. (This I have learned in my many years of stand-up in the grocery store and at Target.)

"I saaaaaid..."Showoffs!" (While searching for a concrete pillar to hide behind.)

Her husband is looking in another direction, clearly to save himself from my recovery attempt.

I'm thinking: I delivered a hilarious one-liner right on cue.

They heard: "Shmmnowoffchzs".

What was I thinking? I had a mask on for Covid sakes. Plus a grocery cart and six feet of space between us. There'll be no funny one-liners here this morning, folks. It's not crappenin'.

Another Covid fatality. I didn't even make it to the hospital.