How A Costco Hot Dog Reminded Me Of A Changing World

My surroundings have changed in the past decade. I’ve noticed it all.

Shopping Trip

I went to Costco with my family yesterday. Quite the riveting story, I know. But this was quite a significant experience for me. I hadn’t been to a physical store in forever.

My connection to the real world had weakened ever since the pandemic started. All of my college lectures and homework were online. My volunteer software engineer position is asynchronous and remote.

And I could just order everything I needed on Amazon.

I had forgotten what the atmosphere of walking through a store felt like. The sound of rolling shopping carts hit my ears, and I saw free samples given out on every corner.

These were all aspects I could remember about retail stores. It brought back memories from when I was a kid.

I got two lemon chocolate almonds and a piece of steak jerky. Not bad.

We also bought two hot dogs before we left the warehouse. But I noticed something very different when we received them.

Instead of the foil paper I was accustomed to, they had put the hot dogs in these brown paper bags. I had never seen them come in this sort of packaging.

There was also something different about the plastic cup topper.

Instead of a hole in the center, there was a latch mechanism on the bottom of it. It resembled the opening of a soda can. I had never seen anything like it, and thought it was all pretty neat.

As ridiculous as this sounds, these little changes make life interesting for me. They remind me of a world that’s constantly changing, and that nothing lasts forever.

Yet amidst this excitement, there is also a hint of melancholy.

Walking Through 8 Years

It has been a little over 8 years since I moved to the city I live in today. It’s a suburban area in the East Bay. At the time, it was a drastic change from my city life.

There aren’t a lot of interesting places to go to around here. But I can see a lot of wildlife. It’s not rare to see plenty of birds, lizards, and even snakes when out for a walk.

Mourning doves make their signature coos every morning.

It’s also much quieter and safer. There have been some rowdy partygoers blasting music at night, but that has only happened a few times in the past years.

My neighborhood hasn’t changed much in the past decade.

But there are small differences that I notice.

When I moved here for high school around 2014–15, I walked to get to school. It was a 20 minute walk from my house to the campus.

The route took me across a long bridge that went over a stream. 8 years ago, that stream was nearly dried up. There would be a trickle of water only a few inches wide.

Nowadays, whenever I go across that same bridge, I see a torrent of water flowing through. The stream is at least 10 feet across now. It was cool to see how much it had changed.

There’s also a path that leads to a set of stairs before the bridge. 8 years ago, the area around that path was empty. They were eventually going to build some houses there.

Fast forward to the present day… and they still haven’t finished construction. But they’ve laid down this huge concrete foundation over the entire area.

They’re building a large park a few blocks away from my home. The concrete has these divots and holes which look like they’re for play structures. You could imagine my surprise seeing that appear out of nowhere.

Painting Over The Past

I remember this one day in 2021. I was back in my home city and heading to my family’s house. As I was walking down the street, I noticed something on the horizon I had never seen before.

There was an entire freakin’ skyscraper in the distance.

It stood out like a sore thumb. It had a rounded top and everything. I thought to myself…

When the heck was that ever there?

I asked my younger brother about it later. Apparently, it had been there since 2017. We moved away at the end of 2014, but I returned for college in 2018. I never knew it existed.

Every day, I walked a few blocks to a bus stop. Then I rode the bus for an hour. However, that bus stop was on the next avenue over.

Actually, I still should’ve noticed it. I have no idea why I never did.

That wasn’t the only change I noticed. There was a fresh coat of paint applied to the crosswalk on my own block. And the dry cleaners shop had closed down after 30 years of business.

Further down the road, many restaurants were replaced with new ones. There was one place where my family would always go for dim sum.

That restaurant closed down years ago. It had been replaced by another establishment.

But that place had closed down too.

We drove past my old elementary school once. I looked into the yard and saw everything that had changed.

It was a lot more colorful than I remembered. When I was a student there, the yard was pure gray asphalt. Now there were blocks of green, blue, and red to mark different areas.

There was also an area with awnings and plants.
It had to be the memorial garden.

It was the Fall Semester of 2010 when we got the news. Our 5th grade teacher and his wife had passed away in a car accident. They were on vacation. It was a shock to us students.

The school planned for this garden to be built in his memory. It looked like it had been completed some time ago.

The Inevitability Of The World

The sights I saw as a child are slowly being painted over. Little by little, my old neighborhood is becoming unrecognizable to me.

To see the world I grew up in disappear is saddening. But I’m also hopeful for what that change will bring.

Change is inevitable.

The world will only continue to evolve. I don’t know what my home will look like in another 20 years. But I will always remember what used to be there.

Those memories are something that will never change.