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Emily Mester’s new essay for BuzzFeed on Costco contains budget deals on coffins, a hoarding father, the unsettling newness of old things, and the well-loved oldness of new things. It’s about many Americas and the empty parking lots in between. Sharply observed and rich with detail, it’s probably safe to say that Mester wrote this thing at a Costco, which “lacks the earthy bourgeois glamour of Whole Foods, or Target’s warm graphic buoyancy, or the hot American urgency of 7/11.” Many of the essays in BuzzFeed Reader’s recent series on class are worth your time—including this one from Alexander Chee—but above all, Mester on Costco is unmissable.
