Seeing Red

Target is my home away from home. But last night it was anything but home sweet home.

Perhaps someone was wise to my wicked ways. I bought two dresses recently at full price- $27.99 each. Gasp. It's not often that something comes home with me without the red sticker tag. Let's blame that on an unused Christmas giftcard. And perhaps temporary insanity.

On Sunday I open the ad and there is my dress staring at me. Taunting me with $17.99. But mine were still in the closet. Still had the tags. Apparently Mother Nature meant for me to get the sale price. The weather has been anything but dress friendly.

So, yesterday I threw those dresses in a bag, grabbed my receipt and walked out with $58.00 on another giftcard. That was around 8am.

My plan was to swoop back in at 5pm and get those dresses back. And I did. They were waiting for me. Oh- did I mention I had two $2 off Target dress coupons? Oh yes, I did.

Um, did I mention I had another 40 or so coupons for other stuff? I did. I was armed with a meticulous list and a plan.



That plan did not include a team meeting in the toothpaste aisle. A meeting that ran out of that aisle and blocked one of the clearance end caps. I know. Don't get me started...oh wait, too late for that.

I believe that perhaps there was a better time for this meeting, like not during after work errand rush hour. And perhaps a better place. Like anywhere that I didn't need to be.

But I do now know how to stock a Target shelf and that Brian's birthday is on Friday and that Betty is celebrating 5 years with the company. Perhaps the greeting card aisle next time?

I somehow managed to negotiate the Target togetherness and grab 3 tubes of Colgate. But it wasn't without a serious amount of eye rolling. And head shakes. And loud sighs.

So guess what, when everyone is in the toothpaste aisle it doesn't leave a lot of folk for the registers. I had two choices, the teenage boy or the teenage girl. Both seemed less than stoked to be anywhere near Target.

Did I mention I had coupons? And had two separate transactions planned. I did. Oh, and a giftcard.

Transaction #1. I hand her the giftcard and she scans it and throws it in the trash. Are you kidding me? And then we go dumpster diving at register 6. Funny, there were A LOT of other giftcards in there. Who would have thought? After about 10 tries we found mine. Fun.

Transaction #2. She scans everything in s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n. Apparently her previous job was at my local theater concession stand. You know, when you are about to miss the previews. But I digress...

Everything is bagged and in my cart. Coupon time. At this point anyone and everyone in line behind me leaves. Fine.

I hand her the pile of coupons and I watch the screen ready to pounce. If you are a Target coupon user you know their computers are challenging. And so am I. Not a good mix.

Immediately it started saying that the items were not there. Oh for the love of...

She wanted to search through my bags. Well, she'd have to kill me first. I stepped between her and the cart. Them were fightin words.

She didn't touch the bags. And I saved $58.00. Which ironically was what I got back for returning the dresses.

Those damn dresses.