Thursday, August 28, 2008

A Bad Trip to Target

This morning was foggy and misty and damp. We skipped our usual outing to the playground and headed to Target.

"But didn't you go to Target yesterday?", you may ask.

Yes, we did. But we only spent $22.51. What kind of a trip to Target is that?

Plus, the kitchen rugs I bought weren't the right kind and didn't look right, and the eyeshadow I wanted wasn't there.

Today we went to the other Target near our house to see if we could find rugs and eyeshadow. We found some better rugs and we found the eyeshadow. So far, so good.

We found some diapers on sale and some stacking drawers that I sincerely hope will help tidy my closet floor.

But we had some problems.

One: the toddler/multi-child carts at this store are different from the kind at the other store. The other ones sit two toddlers next to each other and still let you buckle a baby into the cart seat. They are a little creaky to steer, you constantly kick the toddler part, and a toddler can kick the baby, but they work just fine.

These carts, however, buckle two toddlers facing (more or less) each other. They are much less creaky, but they drift when you walk. Those are mere cosmetic issues. The real defect is that you can't buckle the baby into the seat in the acutal cart. The leg holes are blocked and there is no belt.

So even if you put the baby in the cart seat (facing sideways), baby is free to pull up on the cart handle or seat, creating a real hazard and causing you to hold the baby as you push the drifting cart holding the toddler who keeps yelling, "Go this way. No! Go this way! No! This way! Not this way--this way!"

And then, when you finally get to the one checkout line that is open (and full of shoppers), the diapers ring up to cost $2.50 more than they were marked. And when you ask why, they send a person to look, which holds up the poor people behind you. And the clerk shouts your issue into the walkie-talkie and another clerk takes for-ev-er to figure out whether you bought Baby Dry Pampers or Huggies (I hate Huggies), and finally tell you that you bought the wrong size for the lower price.

No, I didn't. I bought the diapers that were labled with the lower price.

Arrrrrrrrrrrg. So I tell them to take the diapers off my order. And the lady behind me is sympathetic when I apologize because the same thing has happened to her at Target.

I always check my receipt at Target because this kind of thing frequently happens to me there. Once, I found $30 of errors in the store's favor, due mostly to mis-labled items.

Do you ever sing the "Ooo Ooo Ooo, I'm really, really mad" song from Barney? (It's the only Barney song I can stand.) I did today. Well, not out loud--just in my head. But when I took a few deep breaths, the mad still didn't go away. It relaxed some, though, and that's good enough.

2 comments:

le said...

I always wonder how shopping trips can sometimes be such a nice diversion from home life, and other times be such a terror. Sorry yours was so terrible. My fear is having to run after a 3 year old with an infant, I can't catch the 2 and half year old as it is. Now I just run after him until he gets distracted and stops, and sometimes that takes a while.

StevenKatie said...

I want to learn the mad song. :)