Costco Wipes Kick Butt

This is the story of how I found myself considering spending $50 for the privilege of purchasing a case of baby wipes. Let me explain.

After the excesses of holiday spending and entertaining, I was on a downsizing kick, and I let my Costco renewal -- due at the end of December -- lapse. My husband and I have been carrying on a dialogue about the pros and cons of Costco membership for about five years now. On the one hand, we really can't stand the supersized consumerism that Costco represents -- the big, fat SUVS filled with big, fat people jamming a big, fat parking lot so they can shop in that morbidly obese store.

The thing is, what I like at Costco I really like. There are the Noah's bagels, the rotisserie chickens, but I wouldn't fork over the $50 for Costco just for those things. I can get those elsewhere. What I can't get anywhere else is the baby wipes. It's not just me: Costco's Kirkland wipes have achieved a cult-like following on the Internet.

I googled "Costco wipes'' and found a slew of sites waxing philosophic about Kirkland wipes' superiority over other brands, like Target or Walmart. I was thrilled to discover that I'm not alone in how strongly I feel about these wipes. The biggest thing they have going for them is the way they are packaged. Kirkland wipes are the only ones I've seen that have a lid on the top of each individual pack, so the wipes stay moist.

For you nonparents out there, this is going to sound even sadder than it is bizarre. And believe me, I'm with you. In my days of singlehood, living in Manhattan and spending a day's salary on complicated drinks whose names I couldn't pronounce, I would have sworn that you would never hear the word wipe from my mouth, or my keyboard.

But here I am, writing with authority about a piece of cloth whose purpose it is to wipe a bottom. But there's your irony: I would venture to bet that the vast majority of baby wipe buyers aren't even using it for its intended purpose. At our house, Costco wipes clean hands and faces, double as dishcloths, dusters and indestructible picker uppers, way better than paper towels. They can stand in as an eraser for the chalk board, and my husband has taken to stashing them in his car to clean the windows.

There, I've said it. I've proven why it makes sense to spend $50 for the right to buy a case of wipes. Even though it really doesn't make sense.