Right on Target!

       Okay, I know I made a snide comment about strip malls the other day. But today, I drove to the nearest strip mall -- called there by the concentric red and white circles of a Target sign.  The mall is perhaps two minutes away from my new home. 

       Before I continue, I guess I should explain one important thing: my name is Brenda and I am a Target addict. 

       Because of that, I have been doing my best to stay away from Target stores.  I know Target is bad for me. 

       I seem to develop a sort of sickness as soon as I enter through the red doors.  It is like a fever, or dizziness or perhaps even a blackout.  And once it hits, I tend to inexplicably buy stuff -- which would be okay, except for the fact that it isn't stuff I even knew I needed until the moment I saw it at the store. 

       At Target, I can easily spend $4 buying the toilet paper I went in for, and $276 in other products -- like towel racks  and soap dishes and luggage and dresses and dishes and make-up and dog toys and coffee grinders and bedsheets...

       Luckily, Target is very good about returns, and when my Target fever passes, I often take back most of what I bought -- although once I am in the store, the fever naturally hits again and I will frequently end up replacing the returned purchases with new treasures, which later, or course, end up being returned.  

       But after a 12-step program and intensive Target aversion therapy -- including hypnosis, acupuncture and electro-shock -- I started to develop an ability to avoid the store.  

       I admit, I have not been perfect. I would still cave in every once in a while. But I am proud to say I have been able to survive as long as two months without going there.            

       Part of what made that possible, mind you, was the fact that we lived about 20 minutes away from the nearest Target. I had to make a conscious decision to go there.

       All that is over now, however. 

       My new neighborhood has not only the Target I went to today -- two minutes away from our house in one direction. There is also, inexplicably, a second Target -- about four minutes away in another direction.  

       And I have decided that this must be part of what it means to live in the suburbs -- abandoning oneself to Target once and for all. 

       And I feel a sense of relief now. 

       After all those years of trying to resist, I can just give in. Yes!  I want to rub Target all over my body. I want to breathe its filtered air. I want everyone I see to be wearing a red shirt. And I'm not going to fight it any longer.

        It is now, in fact, the nearest store to my home. I no longer have the will or the ability to deny it. It will be my new corner store, my new go-to destination. It will be the convenience store of my new suburban life.  

       Indeed, that new life suddenly feels right on Target.