Once upon a time, a small-town girl hit the big city with two younger guys for a night of freedom and excitement from her otherwise monotonous and quiet life as a wife, mother, and zookeeper.
Okay, that's just to see who actually reads the entries before the most recent one. Yes, I went to the Big City of Minneapolis, but the two younger guys were my son and his friend, and my night of freedom and excitement mostly involved being lost and stuck in traffic, but I DID get to experience the exciting Big-City Two-Story Target!
What is it like, you other small-town non-two-story Target shoppers ask with intrigue? Let me tell you. It's exactly like a regular Target, but it has two stories. And since it's downtown, it's full of ghetto people, so really it's more like a Wal-Mart (shudder!!!!) than a Target. But....Target it still was and really that's all that matters. Since I made a fool of myself several times here, feel free to print this as a what not to do manifesto if you ever find yourself at one of these Tall 'N Skinny Targets:
1. There is an attached parking garage and you get a parking voucher once you spend $20 in the store (as if there was ever any worry about that!). But, the voucher is only good for the first hour, then you have to pay the regular $5/hour like everyone else. They give you 2 hours on the weekend, but who has time to spend 2 hours in a Target on the weekend? It's too crowded and too many people take their stupid screaming kids and/or their lame in a Lark old parents, and we all know stupid screaming kids and lame old people in Larks ALWAYS block aisles. Always. Two hours on a weekday? Piece of cake. Not my weekend, though. I want to keep on loving Target.
2. There are signs posted EVERYWHERE that the carts cannot leave the store, and that the wheels will lock if you try.
3. When you need to move from one floor to the next, there are escalators for both people and carts. Separately. Like segregation. Separate but equal. You push your cart through the little swinging saloon doors on the cart escalator, and it locks your cart like a roller coaster ride and takes it down alongside you on the people escalator (no locking on that one, so you're on your own; this must've been how "separate but equal" didn't quite seem right back in the 50s). While it felt like a pretty fun ride, I'd suggest keeping your arms at your sides and probably not screaming "whoo-hoo!" I wasn't quite sure at first (how the cart went; the screaming whoo-hoo just came naturally). It seemed pretty self-explanatory, but there was that fear I'd stick my cart in there without pushing a special button or saying a magic phrase and my cart would just fall, well, ass over cart, all the way down to the first floor, so I kept skulking around by the escalators pretending to read my shopping list and waiting to see what someone with a cart did. No one with a cart ever came on. I must've had That Look Of An Idiot because an employee asked if I needed help. After he explained it all, I felt quite sophisticated until he told me they get lots of international shoppers who are really confused by it all, which made me realize he didn't think I was quite so much a small-town bumpkin, but more a retarded foreigner.
4. They don't really encourage TONS of shopping, which I found out while trying to make room for the 100 pound bag of cat food and 500 pound bucket of cat litter. There's no shelf on the bottom and they also don't have checkout lanes with long conveyor belts, just the little counter like in an express lane. I figured whatever, I'm at Target, I've got shit I need to get, so I'll work it out later.
5. They have a mini grocery area, which I imagine is what one in a REALLY big city like Omaha or Missoula might have, and it's bizarre because the dairy cases look exactly like the frozen food ones, and there's an aisle called "fresh produce" that's more like a couple of rummage sale tables with a few apples and heads of lettuce. But it was the busiest aisle, which makes me think Ghetto Targeters don't see many veggies in their urban lives.
6. After I finished all of my skulking and my cart and I had enjoyed our quota of riding up and down the escalators, we headed to the checkout. I do remember that I parked right next to a cart corral in the garage, so I knew the cart could go in the garage with me and I was starting to finally feel pretty confident here. Did I mention the signs? Don't remove the carts from the store? The wheels will lock? I did. I remembered. But I also forgot which floor I was on, which means I forgot the parking garage was 2 levels below me while I was now on the skyway level 2 floors above it, and made a beeline straight towards the first set of elevators I saw, not noticing they were right outside the entrance. I set off the alarm, which wasn't that big a deal to me because I'd bought in Electronics and assumed that caused it, plus in my sketchy background was a long period last year where the alarm always went off at my own Target until I finally figured out my coat, which I'd bought online, had a security tag stuck inside. But I figured maybe in downtown Target they have to watch for thieves and hooligans more closely than my own, so I started digging for the Electronics bag and turning my cart around. Right then I saw an employee coming towards me and I moved the cart again just as he was telling me, "You can't take the cart outside the store," at which point - you guessed it - the wheels locked. He then had to go back and get a special wheel unlockie box, all while I get to be stuck in the crowded entrance really feeling like that stupid foreigner from earlier. I asked the wheel guy how I was supposed to get my cart to the car and why is there a cart corral out there if the carts can't come out there? He said I can, through the parking garage elevators. Behind me. Still in the store. So the cart's wheels don't lock. Of course.
Getting back to the Convention Center was exactly like leaving there; a bunch of random turns until I found my way back. I called my son to tell him I found it and to be waiting outside 'cuz there was nowhere to park. His snotty teenage reply? "I'm not waiting outside. It's cold out." Since I'd been expecting more of an atta girl and less of an attitude, I snapped back, "If you don't want me to leave you here to become somebody's bitch on the streets, I suggest you toughen up and be waiting." Of course, the road I'd found was on the WRONG side of the Convention Center, and by the time I got to a street that wasn't a one-way and I could turn around and go back the right way, he was definitely not impressed. But whatever. We'd conquered downtown, I got to see the Famous Target, and we all made it back home in one piece with neither of them having to be anyone's bitch.
The End.
Queen of my own Magic Kingdom, full of all the irreverent, obnoxious, and sometimes offensive sarcasm you know and love. I don't care what people think of me, but I do care if you like my blog. Read, forward, repeat.
