Written for a non fiction writing class April 2015

Bullseye

By Lauren Kastner

The Target logo has become an icon, and the stores are firmly established in pop culture. The internet meme craze includes cartoons of shoppers staring into the Target bullseye’s hypnotizing eye convincing them to buy more, and highlighting the difference between Target people and Walmart people. A friend once told me that she goes to Target to feel like she has money and goes to Walmart to feel pretty.

Over the years Target has evolved into a shopping black hole. You go in for one thing that you forgot last time you were there, and if you’re lucky you may escape without spending over a hundred dollars on things you didn't know you needed but were such a good deal that you couldn't pass it up. A new throw rug for the front entry, a baking sheet that makes cookies into cups for serving dessert in. Women pushing red carts slowly along the back aisles trolling the clearance end caps become competition as you look for items you may need someday.  

I should have known that I would be a “Target Person”. One of the most important and life changing events of my life began at a Target store. My husband and I ran to the store to pick up a few more Christmas cards. I was in the holiday aisle while my husband was a few aisles down playing with video games. The only other person in the holiday aisle was a gentleman that was picking up and putting down boxes of cards with the look of a man trying really hard not to screw up the instructions given to him by his wife. I found the cards I was looking for and tossed them into the cart when all of the sudden I felt warm fluid run down my pants and fill my shoes. It was like my body had turned a gallon jug upside down. In my head I could hear the jug draining glug, glug, glug. My shoes squished as I walked to the end of the aisle to call for my husband. “Brent! My water broke!” I yelled as down the aisle. I glanced over at the man that was looking at cards and saw him staring at me like he was a trapped animal.  He slowly backed down the aisle and disappeared around the corner. The look on his face was priceless. We tried to get the security tapes from the store but we got nowhere with their corporate office.

One of nice perks of a chain store is that they are all the same. This helps with the ease of finding merchandise from one store to the next and is comforting to the shopper, who knows exactly what to expect. On the rare occasion that I have to travel for reasons other than vacation, stores like Target offer the illusion of home. I walk into familiar surroundings that makes me forget for a moment that I am so far from home. Needing a break from a stressful and sad day caring for my father in a state that I have not visited since I was a teenager  leads me to the closest Target store. I walk through the automatic doors and relax. I get a cup of coffee and call my husband while I stroll through the aisles that I know so well. For that hour I am not so far away or so alone.

In the winter months mothers with small children plan for an extended shopping mini vacation. The venti Starbucks latte and the straps on the cart that keep the kids contained make the hour it took to get the kids and yourself bundled up and the SUV scraped off and warmed up worthwhile. It’s mommy time. The fact that you can buy groceries there as well is a bonus, even though that’s the excuse they use to justify the trip. Target gave them a destination to aim for and a reason to go.

    Strolling through a typical Target store you can observe many types of shoppers. The suburban stores that I frequent are full of mommies at different stages. In the afternoons the stay at homers kill time with their kids on days that they can’t play outside. The afternoon shoppers that are retired or have school age kids look sympathetically at the frazzled moms with whining kids trailing after them begging for an icee or a free cookie from the bakery. After school and evenings are a mix of coupon toting cartwheel wielding grocery shoppers and parents killing time in between dropping off and picking up their kids at one activity or another. Inevitably the two collide when against all odds everyone seems to check out at once. The impatient parents of children waiting at whichever activity for their ride home are trapped with their carts of impulse purchases behind a heaping cart of groceries pushed by a customer holding an accordion style coupon organizer and a smartphone with the Cartwheel app ready to go. The floor managers rush to the rescue calling for any available associates to come to the front. The customers nonchalantly try to catch the floor manager's eye in order to get the okay to go to this or that register and start unloading. A team member will be there shortly.

    In Minnesota you can’t avoid the Target employee. We are a Target state, homebase. Red and khaki are everywhere. I even worked at a store for the holiday season one year for the sole purpose of paying for the kids Christmas presents with my paychecks, using the discount. Seeing the Target shopping experience from the other side made me feel bad for store employees and marvel at the way the executives have manipulated the stores to use the least amount of resources to offer the shoppers the illusion of perfect shopping experience. Its a carefully constructed mirage. One floor manager stopped and scolded me while I was cleaning a sticky mess on a shelf when I was supposed to be moving product forward so the shelves looked full. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to look good” I was told. There are no messes on the sales floor, they are hidden. Stray merchandise is tossed into a cart and wheeled into a back room several times a day, where it stays until an employee has time to put it all away.


    I go to Target two or three times a week, sometimes more. I take the kids when I have to, I take the neighbor kids when they ask to go although I prefer to go alone, pop in my headphones and troll the sales. I go armed with a shopping outline, lists are too restricting. I have cartwheel, coupons that Target prints at checkout, coupons I print at home, and coupons that are texted to my phone. I take my time trolling through clearance in every department. I refuse to pay full price for any shirt I think is cute. It’ll go on sale… eventually, and I will be there when it does. I will watch it go from thirty percent off to fifty, and sometimes even seventy before I buy it. That’s my gamble. I’m not the only one that gets the adrenaline rush when I get something on sale. That’s what keeps the crowd going back. Coffee and clearance, bullseye.