Target: It’s not you, it’s me. (OK, it’s you.)
November 2nd, 2007, 3:50 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Sam Mittelsteadt
Have you ever been in a relationship where instead of just breaking up with someone, you start doing things that annoy them in hopes they’ll dump you instead? Lately, I feel like Target is trying to do that to me.
Back in July — July! — their PR company sent out their menswear fall 2007 press kit, featuring all the trends and themes they’d be promoting this season, from David Bowie-inspired tuxedo jackets to argyle V-neck sweaters. And out of the whole press kit, I found one item that inexplicably made me giddy.
That’s right. Camouflage long johns.
I thought they’d make great sleepwear and was even considering them as part of a Halloween costume, with brown and olive drab body paint to create some sort of Stealth Soldier. The press kit said they’d be available “in select Target stores and at Target.com.”
Early August came around: No long johns. In mid-August I started haunting different stores, in case the one near my house wasn’t a “select” Target store. So I hit the Target Greatland up at Desert Ridge. The one by my old apartment on Longmore in Mesa. The big, pretty one down in Gilbert. And even the Super Target that opened at the old Chris-Town Mall in Phoenix. No luck. I e-mailed the PR people in September and they said they’d check on it for me. No response.
I put Target.com on my bookmarks and would check it every couple of days, searching for “camouflage.” No luck. September came and went, and finally in early October I started a full-court press on the PR folks: Where were my long johns? After a few days, the final blow was dealt: It turns out they would not be offered online. And they were sold in “select” stores — but the closest one is in Lubbock, Texas.
That’s one.
While I was haunting all of the different stores, I noticed that my favorite shaving gel, the Sharps Barber Basics line available only at Target, was on clearance — like, final clearance. So on my visits I started stocking up on any tubes I could find, especially since they were marked down to $2-something.
Or were they? At theLongmore store, they are indeed marked down, but they’re still $4-something. And now that I’m mad enough, I’m not buying them until they drop to full-on cheap territory. I went to the brand-new store at Tempe Marketplace and the Sharps display had been erected in the store, but never stocked, which says there’s no substitute headed this way. I feel like those women who used to puzzle me, so panicky bereft at their discontinued shade of lipstick.
Is Target trying to punish me? Is it trying to push me into the arms of the Mart Brothers, Wal and K?
