Bi-Mart Shopping
TIS THE SEASON TO GIFT SHOP
WHILE PICKING UP PAPER TOWELS
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
I
used to be crafty. I’ve made flax pillows as
Christmas gifts, baked cookies, been thoughtful.
I’m not sure what happened, but that’s just not me
anymore. I can’t even blame kids. I don’t have any,
and half the moms I know are super-crafty.
These days I’m more of a last-minute shopper with
a coffee in one hand and last week’s Eugene Weekly to
use as wrapping paper in the other. Still, I do try to buy
local and not have an Amazon Prime Christmas.
And don’t get me wrong, there are so many absolutely
adorable places to shop in downtown Eugene, like
Passionflower, to gems in rural areas, like newly opened
The Farmer’s Wife off Highway 58 in Pleasant Hill.
It’s just that I don’t remember to go there, and next
thing you know I’m shopping for paper towels and laun-
dry soap at Bi-Mart when I remember I’m due to be at a
holiday party in two hours, gift in hand.
When it comes to that, Bi-Mart is my savior. The
employee-owned membership store ($5 one-time fee) has
what I need when I’m having my usual “whoops, I suck at
shopping” holiday moment.
Bi-Mart is headquartered in Eugene, but there are 72 of
them throughout the Northwest. I’m pretty darn sure a lot
of the products are far from Oregon-made, so that puts an
awkward little twist on “buy local.”
Still, every time I go into the Creswell Bi-Mart I see
someone I know, and if I forget my little yellow member-
ship card, they just smile and buzz me in.
I try to make up for my lack of pre-holiday gift plan-
ning with some amount of thoughtfulness to my giving.
To that end, Bi-Mart has an excellent beer selection, both
national and local. Nothing says, “I love you, friend,” like
a couple big bottles of Ninkasi.
And if I’m going the “if I can’t be sweet, I can at least
be fun” route, then there’s the “As Seen on TV” section of
the store. Who doesn’t need a “dancing Tiki light?” Or an
“18-tools-in-one” hammer?
Other actual gifts I’ve purchased at my neighborhood
Bi-Mart include: a fluffy robe, coffee mugs, camping gear
and cheesy romance novels.
For my kind of unplanned-shopper-who-cares thought-
fulness, it’s not about the trouble I went to in order to get the
gift, it’s about what the recipient actually needs — a warm
hat — or what might make them laugh, like a garden gnome.
Thank goodness Bi-Mart tends to have an excellent,
and seasonal, variety of garden gnomes. ■
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www.eugeneweekly.com
Eugene Weekly’s GIFT GUIDE 2018 9