Binge by Douglas Coupland

Author:Douglas Coupland [Coupland, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

31

Kirkland Products

I ATTENDED AN OPTIONAL Costco employee motivation seminar because it meant thirty fewer minutes on my shift in which I had to deal with these wretched beings we have circulating through our store called customers. I’m not a people person, and I only ended up running the till at a Costco because two cashiers went on maternity leave at the same time and I happened to be the warm body holding an application form in front of him when the HR guy realized he was about to be two bodies short.

[*Fist bump*]

Part of the seminar was to try to think outside the box (Oh God, people still say this shit?) and come up with new ways of generating long-term Costco loyalty. I put up my hand. “Why not give a $500 Costco voucher to anyone who can show they legally made ‘Kirkland’ the middle name of their newborn child?”

Suddenly, fifteen faces were staring at me. The guy running the show said, “Chloe, that’s interesting. How did you think of that?”

“How did I think of it? Um…with my brain.”

“But…” I could tell from the guy’s voice that he’s done this same pep talk a zillion times and I’d come up with maybe the first plausible idea he’d ever encountered. “Don’t you think that’s too much money?” he asked.

“Not really. Spread that out over twenty years and it’s almost zilch per year to guarantee that some kid grows up to be a permanent customer. I’ll take eighty-seven beef tenderloins, thank you.”

Then one of the other attendees piped up, “I don’t think anyone would name their kid Kirkland. I mean, how stupid.”

“I beg to differ. Haven’t you noticed all those immigrant families of ten who come in here? Those parents want their kids to succeed here as quickly as possible, and one way is to give the kids names that are 1,000 percent assimilated.”

“Assimi-what?”

“Totally melted into the American scene. Names like Stuart or Sarah or Greg. Not even Gregory—Greg.”

“That’s racist.”

“How is that racist? These people are here to succeed. Giving Greg the middle name Kirkland says, booyah, I’m going to college, sucker!”

Crickets.

Tumbleweeds.

Back to my till.

Soon I got a call to go to the manager’s office, and I was wondering what I might have done. When I got there, Carol, the manager, asked, “Is that Kirkland middle name idea really yours?”

I was insulted. “Well, yeah. Do you think I spend my free time visiting Kirkland brand-building online forums and ripping people’s ideas off? You can give a kid as many names as you want—there’s no legal limit—so why not throw Kirkland into the middle of the bunch? I think Prince William has, like, twelve middle names.”

“I see.”

“Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No. Thanks, Chloe.”

I went back to my station and, as I scanned flats of figs and mega-packages of toilet paper and tube socks by the dozen, I thought about the whole naming thing. Then I decided to do something that, while not technically evil, would nonetheless create issues within the zealously loyal Costco community.

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