I'd Rather Go To Costco With My Best Friend Than Almost Anywhere

It’s 3 p.m. on a summer Friday in July, and while everyone else is using their lax seasonal schedule to hit the beach or enjoy a spritz on a patio, I’m at Costco. I’d argue I’m having more fun than they are, and that’s because my best friend Cassie is here. She waits in line with me at the customer service desk and snaps a picture of me getting my membership card photo taken for our group chat. The employee asks if I want to add her to my membership, likely because they assume we’re partners. Did we both find that hilarious and not not true? Absolutely. This is the errand hang, and I’d argue it’s the highest form of friendship.

Sure, I love getting dolled up to share small plates and sip a few martinis with my girls at a spot we found on Instagram. I live for a park day with friends where we bring snacks and board games and stay until sunset. But I’d trade both for a spur-of-the-moment chunk of quality time: meandering through the grocery store, hunting for a new stainless steel pan, or reorganizing their closet.

Others agree. On TikTok recently, people have been saying that running errands with your pals is a true litmus test. “The stage of friendship where it truly doesn’t matter what the hangout is,” says one TikTok with more than 1 million likes that shows a pair going through the car wash. Another video with the caption, “Yes of course I’ll paint your walls with you and you can come to my blood drawing appointment” yielded comments like “my bestie just came with me to my first pap smear” and “people forget that this is like… the point of friendship.”

The errand hang comes with no pressure to post. You don’t have to perform.

There’s even a name for it floating around online: “body doubling,” a focusing strategy that some doctors say is particularly helpful for those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The idea is that working on a task gets easier when someone else is simply in the room. If you’ve ever sat on the floor while your friend assembled some Ikea furniture, you get it. As the refrain goes, if you want a village, you need to be a villager. Errand hangs are how you show up.

Cassie is one of my tried-and-true errand friends. We met five years ago through my college roommate, her best friend from childhood. She introduced us after we had both just moved to New York, and we joke that we haven’t stopped talking since.

Outside of our Costco adventure — which ended with us buying absolutely nothing except a Chicken Bake and cookie each — we are constantly meeting up at Sephora to restock on makeup or at H Mart to graze the hot bar and do a grocery run. We catch each other up on our weeks between aisles and on the subway ride back home, until she has to get off a few stops before me. One time, we walked to a toy store in a torrential downpour to pick out a Jellycat for our friend Mariana’s birthday. One of our umbrellas broke, we arrived soaking wet, and we landed on the pink macaron. It was a blast.

We still enjoy our set-in-stone dinner plans and wild nights out, but as a Virgo and Taurus who love our routines and get overwhelmed balancing our work, social lives, and personal responsibilities, we appreciate simply being together while getting through our boring to-do list. Just a few weeks ago, I cooked dinner and brought it over to her place so she didn’t have to buy a new batch of groceries before vacation. We watched a crappy movie, and she got to eat some vegetables instead of takeout before her trip. A win-win.

Social media has infiltrated what seems like every outing. I can’t log on without seeing another artsy photo of cocktails or group pictures from an international girls trip. The errand hang comes with no pressure to post. You don’t have to perform. You can wear leggings and that T-shirt from college orientation to watch your friend switch their closet from summer to fall, walk their dog, or finally schedule their annual physical.

The errand hang is a playdate, but for adults. When the friendship is real, it doesn’t matter what you do together. What matters is that you make time for one another even during the busy weeks. And when you have that much fun doing the boring stuff, a chaotic night out bar-hopping is even more of a thrill — especially when you know there’s a Costco-size bag of pizza rolls waiting for you when you get home.