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  "path": "/articles/ill-take-this-costco-sample-but-only-so-i-can-make-an-informed-purchasing-decision",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-22T12:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.mcsweeneys.net",
  "textContent": "Oh, hello—sorry, almost didn’t see you here at the end of the aisle with your hairnet and your alluring toaster oven full of mysterious, cost-free delicacies. I was just passing by, shopping for things that cost money. That’s what I do when I come here. I participate in the bulk-purchase economy.\n\nMy stumbling upon your cart of treats just as you took them out of the toaster oven was a mere happenstance. I wasn’t loitering, watching you like a hungry lioness crouched in the grass, eyeing a decrepit gazelle straggling at the back of the herd. I was just standing here, seriously considering purchasing this $4,000 massage chair, which just so happens to be displayed between the eighty-four-packs of Dr Pepper and your sample stand with its scrumptious aroma.\n\nOh, I suppose if you insist (by simply standing there, droning the name of the product in monotone), I guess I’ll try one. I hardly ever do this. I have not wandered this cavernous warehouse in search of free handouts, nor would I ever do so. No, my breath stinks of chicken pot stickers, which are being handed out in the next aisle over, for a different reason. I don’t even really want to try this sample. If anything, I’m eating this for your benefit, so you can feel accomplished and meet your samples quota (which I assume is your main KPI).\n\nNow, I know I could take this sample and vanish into the gentle breeze created by the enormous ceiling fans. It would be well within my rights as an Executive (brag) Member at this Costco to abscond with this little paper cup containing a bite-sized treat. But instead, I am going to stand here while you tell me about its lack of preservatives, organic nature, and nutrient-packed punch. Why? Because I want you to think that I’m truly considering purchasing this. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of this free perk I pay for.\n\nWhy is it important to me that you don’t think I’m just grabbing a free sample? I don’t know. Why is a sunset? How is love? There are things in this life that can’t be explained. This is one of those things.\n\nPerhaps the saddest part of our interaction is that you’ll never truly know whether or not I enjoyed the sample. Even though you probably just showed up to work this morning and were handed a box of these treats and a pair of slender tongs, I feel like you feel ownership over this product. My mind knows you didn’t develop this recipe, and you likely don’t care about this product. But, because you’re wearing a uniform and handing me this sample, my heart feels that, were I to show even a hint of anything less than exuberance when tasting this, it would hurt you, somehow.\n\nAs a result, I will show an immense, over-the-top, cheesy-TV-commercial-level faux enthusiasm for this product as I bite into it. I will _mmm_ and _wow_ and put on a whole masquerade to spare you the feelings you are not feeling.\n\nDo you want to know how dedicated I am to this made-up cause? I’m about to ask you where these delectable little treats can be found. And then, once we part, I’ll walk in the direction you pointed. I’ll peek back over my shoulder and, if you’re looking, I’ll even reach for a box of them. I’ll examine the box.\n\nAnd though your eyes have now returned to the tongs and I have surely left your consciousness forever, I can’t help but feel like I would be betraying you were I not to toss this box into my cart and buy these snacks.\n\nScrew it. Not only will I buy the snacks, but I’ll also buy the massage chair just to prove to you that I wasn’t pretending to look at it in order to be first in line for the snacks earlier.\n\nTonight, as the hard, sharp prongs on the expensive massage chair dig painfully into my back, I’ll unwrap the first of the 150 of these snacks that were in the enormous 3′x3′ box I purchased, and I’ll think of you, dear, sweet, mentally overpowering Costco Sample Provider. And as I take my first bite, I’ll stop and think, _Hey wait, this isn’t what I sampled at the store. I must’ve grabbed the wrong box._",
  "title": "I’ll Take This Costco Sample, but Only So I Can Make an Informed Purchasing Decision"
}