Late this morning, I headed out for Costco to exchange my recently departed blender. I had purchased the old one on February 15th and used it lightly until I broke my jaw and heavily thereafter. Although I’ve gotten to the point where I can go a day without a blender, I wanted to get a replacement today for a recipe I wanted to make (more on that in a later post).
I knew that many stores wouldn’t let me return something that was so heavily used, but I had heard that Costco had a generous return policy. In fact, this was a reason for my choosing to buy the blender at Costco originally. My local Costco isn’t very easily accessible by public transportation, so I’ll usually make us of my City CarShare membership on the rare occasion that I want to go there. For this trip, I reserved a car for 10:45 at El Cerrito Plaza, a little less than a mile from the Richmond Costco, which would open fifteen minutes later. In my past visits, I had found Costco to be exceedingly crowded, so I hoped to avoid the rush by going early.
Costco certainly wasn’t empty when I got there, but it was certainly less crowded than the other times I’ve been there. I didn’t even have to wait in line to make my return, which was a nice surprise. The guy behind the counter took a look at the box I was returning, and said, “Uh oh. What happened to the box?” It was certainly a reasonable question to ask, as the box had torn and then been taped along one of the edges. I explained that it had been raining the day I bought it. In fact, there was a bit more to the story. My trip to buy the blender had also been one of the few in which I had relied on public transportation, and I had walked from Costco to El Cerrito Plaza carrying the blender. By the time I arrived, the box was thoroughly soaked, and had torn in a few places. It had taken a lot of tape for me to prepare it for the return. The employee didn’t need these details, though. He asked only one more question, “Are all the pieces in here?”, and I answered in the affirmative.
Much to my surprise, I received a cash refund for the blender. I had paid with an American Express card, the only credit card that Costco accepts, and a card I only have because the $50 discount I received for signing up for it exceeded the $40 annual fee for the first year. I would have been happy to have my card credited, or even to get a store credit, but the cashier just handed me cash, and I certainly can’t complain about that.
I then went to look at the blenders on the shelf, and selected an Oster Counterforms blender. I had done some research last night and seen that it sold for $89.99 on Amazon, but in my Costco store, the price was only $49.99. I didn’t really know what to look for in a blender, but it seemed like a good deal, and I knew that Oster had made the blender that has served my mother well over the years, after she inherited it from her grandmother. The package advertised that this blender could be used for chopping food, but I’m skeptical of this claim.
Just looking at the blender, it seemed like the Oster was a significant upgrade from the old Duet. The price is actually ten dollars cheaper, but it doesn’t have the Duet’s food processor unit. Not only does it have a better blade and a more powerful motor, but the jar seems to be crafted more intelligently. The jar of the Duet was much wider than the blade, except at the very bottom of the jar, and there was a tendency for solid foods to slide down the edge of the jar but not make it to the blade. With the Oster, the sides of the jar slope inwards the whole way, and solids and liquids slide nicely back down to the blade to be further broken apart or mixed.
I’ve used my blender a couple of times this evening, and it does seem like it blends things faster and better than the Duet ever did, but I’ll get to that in a later post about food.
Shock and Jaw 
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