Merry Xmas, Target

I'm not thinking so much that it's the holidays and people will be in the stores, and that people in stores and me don't mix so well, and that perhaps I should just stay home, shop online or send my husband out for provisions. So since I'm not thinking this way, I'm still going out and shopping for things I could buy online or send my husband out to buy.

Like last night. I went to Target.

I did go with my husband, however, because I know myself well enough to know that I can't handle stores on my own too often.

The first thing I had to do was tackle the xmas area of our local Target, which includes a bountiful of xmas related items and decorations...and PEOPLE. I needed to get more wrapping paper and bows and ribbon and boxes. This should have been easy, but alas, two teenage girls decided dragging their shopping cart down the cheap wrapping paper aisle and blocking everything was a good plan. My husband decided he should stand back across the main aisle and wait for me. So with parmesan dusted soft pretzel in hand, I ventured up and down the xmas aisles looking for all the cheap stuff.

I would bring things back to my husband piecemeal because there wasn't enough room for me to be lugging around various items in one hand while stuffing said pretzel into my mouth. I had to take a deep breath and dive back into the wrapping paper aisle only to be embattled for personal space with the two teenie boppers. No one else existed at all. Only them and their stupid shopping cart. And all their friends that they were buying the wrapping paper and other stuff for. It was them, them, them. But what about me? I'm an adult. You be nice to me, teeny boppers or I'll get mad and call you a little girl!

I made the mistake of making the rounds again looking for wrapping paper that came in a set, which, by the way, Target apparently doesn't believe in anymore. When I turned to go back down that aisle, the two girls were still there, bouncing off the display walls. I was perusing the wrapping paper, decided on a couple of rolls, and then changed my mind on one because it was extra long, and I don't need extra long paper this year. That was when this huge mamajama came strolling down the aisle in her white kaftan, super done-up face and fat kid in tow. Being the kind person that I am, I decided I should wait for her to get out of my way instead of moving further down the aisle and getting into her way. You would think, wouldn't you, if someone was making this sort of an effort, you would move yourself, cart and fat kid in tow a bit faster instead of making the kind person wait for you to continue your stroll down the aisle? Right? I mean, I would. I notice these things. But no. Kaftan mamajama kept on strolling and fat kid wasn't planning on ever moving any faster than he was, so I had to push him out of the way a bit so I could put back the extra large roll of wrapping paper. Because I did that, I needed to head back up the aisle to get another roll of regular paper (why I didn't do that when I was waiting for kaftan to walk by, I don't know). So I turn around and wham! I've got teenie boppers blocking the way.

"Excuse me," I said in monotone while parmesan cheese dust fell all over my wool jacket.

She moved, but only in that way that indicates she was already planning to move, and it certainly wasn't because I was there or that I said excuse me.

I grabbed another roll, made it down the aisle and put them in our shopping cart. As I did, I let out a huge breath of air.

"What's the matter," my husband asked.

"Oh, I'm just decompressing," I told him.

We continued shopping, and when we headed to the checkout area, my husband relinquished the cart to me (I'm hardly ever allowed to drive the cart -- I tend to get angry and hit people with it) and ran off into the holiday candy section.

I found a nice older lady who was just waiting for me to show up so she could ring me up. I put all my items on the belt and moved toward the credit card machine. She picked up a desk lamp I was buying to take better pictures of my jewelry (so, in other words, out of all the stuff I was buying, this was the one thing I needed the most), looked it over, looked at me, stopped some man who was walking by (manager, I'm assuming), and said, "This doesn't have a price tag on it."

Oh, no problem, I thought. Someone will run over there to the shelf, check the price, tell her how much it is.

The guy's response was (without looking at it really), "If it doesn't have a price tag, then it's a display and you can't sell it."

"Oh, okay," she said and put the desk lamp in a box underneath her register.

Whaaaat? I thought. What about me?

"You okay with that?" she asked me.

Well, let's see. You're almost finished checking me out, there's a lady behind me who obviously wants to get out of here (I notice these things as well), my husband is MIA in the candy aisle so I can't send him to go look for a lamp that does have a price tag on it (there were three laying on the shelf), so what else am I to do? So I looked around and said, "Okay?" like I half believed myself.

I started grabbing for my cell phone to call my MIA husband and tell him to grab another lamp, when I saw him walking towards the register with a bag of Mother's cookies in hands. I told him to go grab another lamp. He gave me the bag of cookies, I added it to the remainder of my stuff, and when the lady was finished ringing me up, she asked me if I wanted to wait for him or just pay.

Well, let's see again. Should I be one of those obnoxious people who hold up the line because they don't want to get back in line to buy something that they should have been able to buy in the first place? Or just pay and make my husband wait in line to buy my lamp. The lady behind me did have "crazy shopper" eye, so I figured I should just pay and get myself out of the way. Who knows, she may be Kaftan's sister.

My husband cam back with another lamp with no price tag. Oh come on. They seriously can't say these two lamps that have plastic wrapped around them and cardboard shoved between the plastic vise clippers are displays. My husband told me that the third one didn't have a tag either.
Guess who walked by at this exact moment? The man who declared the first lamp a display without even investigating the situation.

"Excuse me," I said, "you told her this the lamp was a display and it couldn't be sold. This one doesn't have a price tag either, and there is a third one over there that doesn't too."

"Oh," he said. "I'll take care of you right now." He rung up the lamp based on my husband telling him that the sign said $6.99. My husband paid.

Now why couldn't that have happened in the first place? There was no way I was leaving Target without my lamp, I tell you.

Xmas shopping is fun, fun, fun!