"Lost in the Supermarket"

Costco is the undiscovered country. Of possibility. Maybe. OK, probably not. But think about this, anyway:

On Monday, January 17, 2011, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I found myself at Costco with my parents, mostly because I had nothing better to do, but also because Vanessa was at work and I was bored. And we needed butter. Yup, Costco-sized butter. That’s how we roll.

Shortly after our arrival, my father and I were walking by the electronics section, when an older gentleman passed briskly and purposefully in front of us. It was Elder Jeffery R. Holland. He was wearing conservative pants and a white shirt, but, weirdly, with a snazzy leather jacket.

Now, perhaps I am crazy, but I always expect older folks who rock leather to rock leather bomber-style jackets. Maybe it’s because I labor under the (willfull?) delusion that anyone over the age of sixty was in World War II (my psyche is stuck in the early ‘90s), but that just seems right, to me.

But no, Elder Holland was in something Paul Newman would have worn in the ‘70s—and I don’t mean that it was retro: It was snazzy. Cool. Hip. It seemed to say to the world, The man wearing this jacket is in touch.

Elder Holland walked right over to a Costco dude and led off with “Hey! My man!” and then my father and I were out of earshot and I pointed out to my father that Elder Holland is a snazzy dresser for an old guy and we went about our business.

About twenty minutes later, we’d found my mother and we were walking out of an aisle that was capped with a display booth and an anxious gentleman with a microphone selling blenders or something. As we were behind the booth, I commanded an excellent view of the half-dozen or so Costco patrons who were listening to the anxious gentleman’s pitch, and I was delighted to see Elder Holland, again, with his wife, in the front row. And Elder Holland was listening with rapt attention—as, I imagine, Mormons (who are awake) listen to his talks every six months during General Conference.

This, evidently, is what modern-day apostles (as in the Big 12) of Jesus Christ, prophets, seers, and revelators, do on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: they wear generation-defying jackets and think about purchasing blenders.