Taking Over Costco Pt. 3

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.