I consider myself well-versed in pizza. I am confident I have tasted some of the world's best, in the U.S. as well as in Italy. When it comes to rating, comparing and contrasting, say, Pepe's with Carminuccio's or Patsy's of Harlem with Forno di Campo de' Fiori of Rome, I am a veritable connoisseur. I happen to live in Connecticut and am less than an hour's drive from several first-rate pizzerias. So, where was I jonesing to have pizza today for lunch? My local Costco.   

I  am embarrassed to say I love Costco pizza and not just because it's a lot of food for a mere $1.99 per gigantic slice (plus 55 cents for a soft drink). I cannot justify my hunger for the multi-topping Combo that features thick and bready crust, cheap cheese, bland sausage, oversalted pepperoni, desiccated mushrooms, brittle peppers, and olives undetectable by human taste buds. Somehow, all these mediocre elements harmonize into a slice I greedily devour at a molded plastic table in an eat place with the worst ambience this side of army mess. And believe me, dining in the store is part of the experience. I've bought whole Costco pizzas to take home and bake. They were uniformly awful. It is possible that my skewed passion is a corollary of what I call in-store taste myopia, the phenomenon of savoring the free sample of canned Thai chicken breast (or whatever) you are served in the grocery aisle, only to buy a dozen cans then realize how hideous it really tastes when you cook it at home.

I did cap off my pizza misdemeanor with unequivocally high-end dessert: the smallest box of turtles they offer at Bridgewater Chocolate just up the road in Brookfield. It cost seven times more than my combo slice.

Am I the only one who should know better, but nonetheless craves something so-bad-it's-good to eat?