1. Lots Of Beer. 24 bottles of beer and then if you buy two boxes because you think, well, I don't come to CostCo that often because it's too big and there are too many choices and the people with screaming kids and those flat pallet carts filled with 200 cans of pickled beets - those people are the people you like to pretend don't represent America - and so you buy two boxes of beer or maybe three then you've got 48 bottles or 3 x 24 which is more than 48 but less than 100 - anyhow, it's So Much Beer. So much beer that you have to store it in the basement and then go often to check on it and admire it and yell up the stairs to Ben "hey, Ben, you want any beer?"

2. Cheap. because in Oregon, although we let the Rajneeshees roam free and even poison a whole town and I've been to more gay weddings than straight ones this past year, we tax the hell out of all kinds of alcohol. we are not afraid of contradictions, but we are afraid of people buying booze on Sundays and if you're going to get drunk in our state, it's going to cost you. unless you buy your beer in bulk.

3. Friends with the Neighbors. now, with all this beer laying about, you can offer some to a neighbor as in 'care for a beer?' and then when you go to get the beer you offered, you actually have some to give. because 6 packs go fast. But bulk beer? Doesn't go fast.

which leads me to reasons Not to buy beer at CostCo

1. 48 or even more bottles of the Same Kind Of Beer. It's the same every time you drink it. It's the same beer and so when you go to get a beer you don't peer around inside the fridge wondering what Ben brought home from New Seasons maybe some new kind of microbrew you've never seen or maybe Black Butte Porter which is your favorite all-time best bottled beer ever. No, no, it's the compromise beer that neither one of you really loves but you can live with and you bought it, 2 or more boxes of it, because it was cheap and it Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time.

2. Not Cheap. Having many many bottles of the same kind of beer means that you start offering beer to the neighbors, to anyone who stops by, to people on the street. Friends stop bringing beer over because you have SO MUCH that what's the point, really - and so you're actually keeping the entire town in beer. Which is not cheap.

3. Friends with Neighbors. maybe you don't really want to be friends with your neighbors. maybe once you become friends with your neighbors you can no longer yell at them for letting their dog poop in the park across the street without picking it up. maybe once you become friends with your neighbors and then they decide to build on the empty lot next door and you find out that the kinds of houses they like to build are shaped like barns, well, you can't really say anything. because you are friends now. because you shared your beer.