A warehouse the size of a small airfield in Burbank, California. Concrete floor. Twenty-foot industrial shelves stacked with boxes the size of suitcases. At the entrance, a woman in a red vest stood behind a small podium. She held a scanner the size of a brick. Her name tag read VIVIAN. "Member or guest?" "I have no allegiance yet." "Excuse me?" "I have sworn fealty to no household in this country." "Oh. You wanna sign up. Right this way." She led me to a counter. Forms. A small camera. A laminator. "Sixty-five for the Gold Star. One twenty for the Executive, gets you two percent back." "I will take the Gold Star. A man who buys his own honor in the first season does not invest in the second tier." "Yeah, exactly." She took my photograph. The camera flashed. A small white card emerged from the laminator. My face, my name, a sixteen-digit number, and the word MEMBER in black ink. "That's you." "This is the proof of my house." "It's just a Costco card, hon." "It is the proof of my house in California." "Sure, hon. Keep it in your wallet." I bowed to Vivian. I bowed to the card. I walked into the warehouse. The samples began in produce. A small woman in a hairnet stood behind a steaming silver tray. She was perhaps sixty. Her name tag read LINDA. "Wanna try some salmon, sweetie? Honey-glazed." "You are the food taster of the warehouse." "I'm the demo lady." "It is the same role." "It really isn't, hon." "In my country, before the lord receives a dish, a man of trusted lineage tastes it first to confirm that no harm has been placed within. You stand at the threshold of the warehouse and you taste the salmon for every man who walks past. You are the taster of all who enter." "That is way more important than what I get paid for, hon." "You are underpaid." "Oh, sweetie." I took the small paper cup. I ate the salmon. The honey glaze had crisped on the edges and the salmon had absorbed it. "The lord lives." "The lord lives." "Yes." "That's my new favorite. You want another?" "I cannot. I am the lord. The lord does not return for seconds at the taster's station." "Wait, you said you were the lord?" "I am unaccompanied. There is no one above me on this errand. By default I am the lord." "Hon, you're shoppin' for one." "Then by default I am also the household." "Okay, hon." I bowed to Linda. I walked deeper into the warehouse. A second taster, frozen pizza. A third, almonds. A fourth, organic apple juice in a thimble cup. A fifth, sharp cheddar on a toothpick. At the cheese, I stopped. "I have eaten five courses standing. This is the most generous tasting I have ever received from a household that has not invited me to dinner." "It's just samples, hon." "Then your household is wealthy." "It really is." I walked past mountains of products. A tower of paper towels thirty rolls high. A pallet of olive oil in plastic gallons. A coffin-sized box of Frosted Flakes. A pack of forty rolls of toilet paper that came up to my hip. I picked up the toilet paper. I put it down. I did not have a residence. I picked up a thirty-pound bag of basmati rice. I held it in both hands. I considered. "I have no place to store this." A man pushing a cart with two children inside heard me. "You from out of town, partner?" "I am." "Yeah, Costco's for stockin' up. Not for travelin'." "Then I have come to the wrong warehouse." "You came to the right warehouse for the hot dog." "The hot dog." "Yeah. Dollar fifty, comes with a soda. Best dollar fifty in America." "A dollar fifty for what." "For everything. They been chargin' a dollar fifty since I was your kid's age." His older child, perhaps eight, said, "I'm seven, Dad." "Since I was about his age. Forty years. Never went up." "Forty years at the same price." "Yep." "In my country, when a lord swears a price for a thousand years, it is law. Forty years is the beginning of law." "Yeah, partner. That's about how it feels." I bowed to the father. I bowed to the children. The younger child, perhaps five, bowed back from inside the cart. The older child was too old to bow but waved, which is the bow of a seven-year-old who is still seven but trying not to be. I put the rice back. I walked to the food court. The line for the hot dog was thirty people long. I joined it. The man in front of me had a flat cart with five flat-screen televisions. The woman behind me had a cart with a single rotisserie chicken. "That's a lot of televisions." "My in-laws." "You are bringing them five televisions." "Yeah." "You must love your in-laws." "Or owe them something." "Or both." "Or both, yeah." I reached the counter. The man behind it wore a red apron. His name tag read JOSE. "What can I get you, my guy." "The hot dog of the eternal price." "The combo." "The combo." "Soda?" "Yes." "Onions?" "Am I worthy." "They're free, my guy." "Then I am worthy by the household's generosity, not my own." "Sure." "Mustard." "Yellow or Dijon." "Yellow." "Relish." "Yes." He built the hot dog. The bun was steamed. The hot dog was a quarter-pound. The yellow mustard. The relish. The onions in a metal pumper that you operated with a foot pedal. "That'll be a dollar fifty." I placed a five-dollar bill on the counter. "Three fifty back, my guy." "Keep the change as a token of the forty-year oath." "I'm not gonna keep your change, my guy. I'll get fired." "Then keep it until you are not fired and pay it forward." "I'm not gonna do that either." He gave me three dollars and fifty cents. I sat at a round metal table bolted to the floor. I unwrapped the hot dog. I ate it. It was a hot dog. It was a dollar fifty. The household had honored a price for forty years and the lord had eaten the proof in three minutes. I drank the soda. A boy of perhaps six at the next table had ketchup on his cheek. "Mom, the samurai is staring at me." "He's not staring at you, baby." "He is, look." I had not been staring. I had been thinking about how a household promises a price for a thousand years and a lord arrives forty years in and eats the proof. I bowed. "Mom, the samurai bowed at me." "That's nice, baby." "Why." "He has ketchup on his cheek too." "I do not have ketchup on my cheek, Mom." "He thinks you're brave for it." "Brave for what." "For the ketchup." The boy looked at me with the suspicion of a child who has been told something he does not believe. I touched my own cheek and showed him my finger. Nothing. "Mom, the samurai doesn't have ketchup." "Then he was bowing for somethin' else, baby." "I was bowing because you are eating the same hot dog that I am eating, and the price has not changed since your grandfather's youth, and we are part of the same forty-year promise." The mother slowly lowered her own hot dog. "What?" "It is a promise of the warehouse." "Okay." I stood. I bowed to the family. I walked toward the exit. At the exit, an older man in a red vest stood holding a yellow highlighter. His name tag read STAN. "Card and receipt, sir." I gave him both. He glanced at the receipt. He glanced at the card. He glanced at me. He drew a single yellow line across the receipt. He handed it back. "Thank you, sir. Drive safe." "I have been allowed to leave the warehouse with my purchases." "Yep." "I have been counted on the way out by a man who counts everyone." "That's me." "You are the gatekeeper of the eastern bailey." "I'm Stan." "Stan. The gatekeeper." "Drive safe, sir." I bowed to Stan. I bowed to the highlighter, briefly, which seemed only proper. In the parking lot I sat in the rented car for one minute before starting the engine. I had purchased a Costco card and a hot dog. I had eaten five courses of samples standing. I had tasted the salmon and confirmed the lord lives. I had refused thirty pounds of rice and forty rolls of paper. I had been bowed back at by a five-year-old in a cart. I had been counted out by Stan. In my country, a lord buys his honor by birth. Here, a lord buys his membership for sixty-five dollars and the price of the hot dog never changes. It is the same ceremony. I have eaten the price of a forty-year promise. The lord lives.