Mustard-flavored love on aisle 38 in Costco

Many couples slip into something sexy on their anniversary.

David and Susan Barrow dressed as mustard bottles and went to Costco. Actually three different Costcos.

They paraded around the stores as Mr. and Mrs. Mustard in bright yellow costumes garnished by stuffed hot dogs.

What’s up with that?

Love. Mushy, mustardy love.

In front of a warehouse display of condiment yellow is where David and Susan locked eyes for the first time in March 2014.

They met in the mustard aisle at Costco on a blind date. They got married six months later.

So, to celebrate two years of wedded bliss, last Tuesday they spent the day spreading on the mustard.

The couple squeezed each other in front of squeeze bottles of French’s mustard on Aisle 38 at the Kirkland Costco, where it all began. Then they made the rounds through the Woodinville Costco espousing the ​powerful aphrodisiac of ​mustard​. At the Everett Costco, they shared a hot dog, biting off opposite ends until their lips touched in the middle.

Mostly, though, they posed for a lot of photos and selfies with workers and customers amused by the bubbly couple in yellow pointy hats.

It was by random chance that these two even connected in the first place. David, 59, a business technology specialist for mobile apps, was dividing his time between downtown Kirkland and San Francisco. He’d never even been to Snohomish, where Susan, 49, a mortgage banker, was raising two teens and a tween.

The cupid uniting them was a car salesman.

“I was buying a car and my phone was pinging a lot and I said, ‘Oh, I signed up on a dating website,’” Susan said. “He said, ‘My buddy is doing that.’ And I said, ‘Well, set me up with him.’”

She gave the salesman her business card that had her photo on it, and he gave it to David with a warning that she was “way too chatty” for him.

Maybe so, but David was impressed. “I said, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty lady.’ So I gave her a call.”

He was dating two other women at the time.

After talking on the phone several times, David suggested they meet at Costco for their blind date.

“I didn’t want it to be fancy. I wanted it to be real everyday,” David said.

Susan wasn’t exactly impressed.

“I thought this guy was weird,” she said.

Or cheap. Was a $1.50 hot dog his idea of a dinner date for a woman who wears Nordstrom shoes?

David sent her a Google calendar invite for a one hour meeting in the mustard aisle.

“I was thinking, one hour … seriously?” Susan said.

But she went.

First she debated how to dress: What do you wear on a date to Costco?

That was easy compared to the next dilemma. A cart or no cart? She wasn’t sure if she’d need a getaway vehicle.

David knew at first sight that he’d found his Mrs. Mustard. “I was smitten immediately,” he said. “She was a bit slower to warm up.”

They spent an hour in Costco on that first encounter. They walked around and ate free samples. He didn’t buy her a $1.50 hot dog.

He did, however, break up with the two other women he’d been dating. Two months later, he bought Susan an engagement wedding ring — at Costco.

It turns out he had specifically chosen the mustard aisle for a reason.

“I picked mustard because there is a scripture in Matthew 17:20 that talks about if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can do big things, so it was the idea of starting small and growing into something that would be very significant,” he said.

The plan worked.

At their wedding, guests threw mustard seeds instead of rice.

“It was very slippery,” Susan said.

The couple live in Snohomish. His sons are 18 and 25. She has sons, 14 and 16, and a 20-year-old daughter.

“We’re polar opposite families,” she said. “His boys are more artsy and musically inclined. My daughter, give her a gun, a truck; she’s a tough girl. My boys are all about every sport you can ever imagine.”

And, yes, she is chatty, just like the car salesman said.

“She’s the extrovert. I’m an introvert,” David said.

Dressing as a mustard bottle brought him out of his bun. At the Everett Costco, he cracked jokes with passersby and hammed it up for pictures.

A little girl holding a hot dog wandered over, stared, then blurted, “I like mustard.”

A woman slathered the couple with her enthusiasm. “I just love mustard!” she exclaimed. “I just can’t get enough. This is my lucky day.”

“I thought you were the man with the yellow hat,” remarked a guy walking by.

“Did you lose a bet?” someone asked.

A Costco worker put it this way: “You can find everything at Costco,” he said. “You just have to know where to look.”

Contact Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter:@reporterbrown.

Must love mustard

It’s not just Susan and David Barrow who get mushy over mustard.

​Recently a couple got engaged at the National Mustard Museum, vowing to love and cherish each other just as much as they relish mustard.

The museum is a tourist attraction in Middleton, Wisconsin. It has about 5,500 jars, bottles and tubes of mustard from every state and more than 70 countries. Also on display are hundreds of items of great mustard historical importance, including antique mustard pots, mustard tins, vintage mustard advertisements and mustard memorabilia.

There is a MustardPiece Theatre and a tasting bar that includes chocolate mustard.

More at mustardmuseum.com.