Target? Really? COME ON!

Okay. I need to rant.

Yesterday I went to one of my local Target stores. I'm one of these people (you likely are as well) who cannot walk into a Target store and only buy one thing. For me it's more like "Oh crap, I'm out of saline solution," and then $74.57 cents later, I find my way to the checkout.

One of the things I like about Local Target #1 (I'd claim at least 2) is that I know where everything is. I can go in, get what I'm looking for or the stuff on my list, and get out reasonably quickly before my weaker impulses take over and I'm noticing how much cooler that alarm clock is than the one in my bedroom, or wondering if I have enough OxyClean.

Local Target #1 is right on the edge of a school neighborhood, so I have as much chance of getting out of there without being spotted as... well, let's just leave it as a really small chance. And that's not a huge issue, but sometimes when you're just browsing your way through Target you'd rather not have to endure three impromptu parent-teacher conferences or spend even forty more seconds with that one kid who drives you up the proverbial wall. Because THAT is the only kid you ever wind up seeing. Which makes Local Target #1 so great, because if you go in there with purpose you can knock stuff off your list and get in and out in a hurry.

So I'm in there this weekend, and after I make an immediate right turn into the pharmacy section to find the aforementioned saline solution I start for the pet food and only then realize that THEY HAVE TAKEN EVERY ITEM IN THE WHOLE @#$%&*#*! STORE AND MOVED IT SOMEWHERE ELSE. Signs are posted every nine feet begging we the customers for our patience while they "remodel," and promise how the "new look" is going to make our Target experience even better than it was before, as if that were even possible. And here I am wondering which area code I have to travel to just to find the stinkin' Snausages, fer cryin' out loud. And it wasn't so much that they just switched aisles around, but they completely reorganized it all, repainted, even got rid of the old shopping baskets (which, okay, I'll concede wasn't such a bad move).

Now, this is like the third time Local Target #1 has pulled this stunt in the past five years. I would REALLY like someone to explain to me why this kind of mind game is necessary. I have half a mind to drive four miles to a different Target where I kind of know where things still are, or 5 miles in the other direction, or to one of the other 19 Target stores within 10 miles of my house. But I know I won't. I'll just wander aimlessly for a few months until I reacquire the layout, then settle back into my retail complacency.... until they do it again in nine months.