Target

With most of my friends away in Vegas or Cali I decided to spend the weekend home catching up on homework. On Friday night nothing got done because I spent all of my time watching movies, back to back to back. I kept saying, "after this one I'll start it" but that never happened. On Saturday night I realized that I wouldn't do any of the reading without a new bulb or just a new lamp altogether for by my bed. I have to have the exact right environment to work or else nothing gets done and the only place I like to read in my apartment is in bed. But I can't read with the normal lights because they are aimed in a different direction than the way that I lie when reading in bed so a lamp was a NECESSITY!

Where better to find a lamp than the Target down the block from me? What started as a task that should have taken at the longest, 30 minutes, turned into a 3 hour long ordeal. The first setback occurred when I realized that there was a PetSmart next to the Target. I took my first little detour into the store to watch mice run in and out of holes, iguanas freeze at the sight of me and fish scream their drowned voices to an uncomprehending me. I thought about getting an iguana but they looked so scared of me that I felt bad for them. Plus I thought of the crickets that I would have to constantly buy in order to feed them and how annoying that must be. An Iguana would be a bad pet for me. Besides the iguana the only thing I really liked was the gecko that was sleeping while suctioned to glass of the tank. But the more I thought about it, the more I really just wanted a dog. But a dog is something that I can't have right now because of my work schedule and apartment size. I left the store with nothing, but a half an hour wasted on nothing.

The one section I was trying to avoid in Target was the DVD section. I have a sick addiction to buying DVDs. Somehow I always convince myself that the DVDs are NEEDS, not desires. I always justify them with the fact that I want to make films and that the movie watching is really just me studying and learning, which is true, but I still have a DVD buying addiction. So my first thought when entering the store was to avoid the section at all costs. I found the lamp section, well away from the DVDs, fairly easily. They ended up being right behind these mirrors that I wandered off to take a look at. I need a HUGE mirror in my room to take up this empty wall. I thought about just getting a painting for it but a mirror would be a perfect fit. The mirrors at Target weren't big enough so I turned around and there were the lamps. The section was full of all kinds of lamps, from those that were ornately designed to the most simple table lamp that latches on to the desk. I wanted something in between because the latched one looks cheap but the fancy ones were too fancy, after all I just needed it so that I could read in bed. After thoroughly looking at them all I decided to just replace the bulb on my old lamp rather than buy a new one.

In my wandering to find the bulbs I came across some cool pictures that may have a place in my apartment. I realized after 10 minutes or so that they didn't and that I was just wasting time and ventured further into the unchartered territories of the store. And what did I happen to stumble across but a full tiki oasis. There is nothing that I need more in my house than a tiki bar. There wasn't much deliberation before I headed towards the paradise in the middle of the store but the closer I got the more flaws that I saw. The bar looked cheap and after sitting on the stools and feeling the flimsiness of it all I realized that this was all just an illusion and that I'd better wait until I found a better one to invest in. But there were these cool coconut cups that I just had to have. However there was only one and that would not do so I headed off to find the others.

The drinkware section was dangerously close to the DVD section but I maintained my sights and the objective at hand. The cups were nowhere to be found though and soon my eyes drifted to a small section located within the drinkware section that including the title I was trying to avoid "DVDs". The section was small and all the movies were well priced. I decided that Baseketball was a movie well worth 5.50 and that it was my first positive purchase selection chosen thus far. I also decided to continue searching for my cups in the electronics section of the store. I needed another power strip for my lamp anyway because my computer, camera, printer, portable hard drive and phone charger were also in this area. But instead of deciding on a simple power strip I saw the Monster power strip that had everything color coded connections for my cable, which would make the entertainment center so much easier to manage. And right next to these power strips were the surround sound speaker stands that I asked the woman about two days before to which her reply was "we don't have any". So two more purchase decisions were made and still didn't have my lamp, which is all I really needed in order to do my homework. I still had the cup in my hand and I thought I would find the others first before getting the lamp but my hands were full and I was beginning to drop my merchandise as I stumbled onward.

I tried to fit them all into one of those hand-baskets but the speaker stands made that impossible. I saw a cart with only on item in it and decided to make a run for it. After taking the one item out I realized that I had just penetrated the heart of the DVD section and felt overwhelmed with desire to grab more movies. "No! No, I thought, continue onward" and I grabbed the cart and rushed out of the section, grabbing Everything is Illuminated along the way. I emerged from the section virtually unscathed but another trip into the section might not prove as successful. I decided that there could be no more close calls. I would ask the man where the cups were, get my lamp and leave.

I loaded the three extra cups that the man helped me find and the clip lamp to my cart and headed towards the checkout. On my way I saw a cute girl with what I thought was her daughter but the words "let's go find your mother" drifted into my ears and a little victory dance started to play in my mind. When I turned to see where she had gone, she was nowhere in sight. After seriously considering trying to find an excuse to backtrack through the store I decided that it was better to just get home because I was already way behind schedule. Besides, the girl in front of me didn't look too bad either. Tall but cute. Nothing was said as she headed out the door and I was calculating the amount of the items in my cart. The cashier commented on the cuteness of the cups that I was purchasing to which I replied:

"Yeah I know I was psyched when I saw those. Now all I need is a blender and a tiki bar."

That's about when it hit me. I was at Target, alone, on a Saturday night and "psyched" about some coconut cups that I happened to find.