DamnitHank

For so many reasons, Target is like the hangover from a night out that we choose to relive over and over and over again.. In 8 steps I will tell you how…

1.) The pre-game : for anyone with kids, we know a trip to Target alone can cure any amount of cabin fever we have so while we sit at home awaiting the arrival of our kid duty reliever, we pre-game. This is done mostly by ‘making a list’ (that will never see the light of Target but it held justify the cause), getting ourselves ‘ready’, which at this stage in life means leggings, messy bun and printed graphic tee, and we scout the couch cushions out for that extra .45 to make our coffee a venti when we get there…

2.) The drive there : This is a fun part, especially if you’re alone. At this stage, we are so pumped we got out of the house that we find our oldest burnt CD, crank up ‘Womanizer’ by Brit Spears and we don’t care if it’s raining or snowing, the bass goes up and the windows go down. We are on our way.

3.) The 2nd pre-game : Simply put all this means is we got Starbucks…

4.) The actual party : Here , we are at the stage of the night where we are teetering on the edge of wow I feel really good about this, but I feel like one more aisle (or shot in the case of true partying) would really put me over the edge and I’ll lose all control… Usually this is the stage where we start to fall for the ‘red sticker’.. the sweet sound of 30 cents off serenades us into thinking we have just won the lotto of bargains and so we load up on the last 6 cases of scented wax warmer refills and we strut our rich asses to cash-out our tab…

5.) Paying the tab : Where it all starts to fall apart.. suddenly, as Meredith and her bright ass red shirt are just casually swiping 6 yards of purchases across that annoyingly loud ( everything in the stage is loud and annoying and suddenly you just want to be home ) scanner, and then when she tells you your total, you give her a look of ” oh, sure, no problem” and insert your card as your peer at the lady behind you like your treating her too….all while slowly make a deal with God that you’ll never do it again, just please don’t let my card decline.

6.) The walk out : The parts from here on out I would relate too as the morning after.. The walk to the car as you push one cart and drag another behind you is mostly an area of shaded gray… Mostly thinking to ourselves “What The Fuck just happened? Where the hell did I park?”

7.) The walk of Shame : We’ve now sadly loaded up, drove home in a solemn silence while we gather our thoughts, finish our watered down coffee and build up the answers to so many questions from our husbands.

8.) The ” I swear I’ll never do that again” stage : Sadly in this stage we are unloading and cursing Target’s name. Here we figure out where shit went wrong while mumbling things like “I don’t even have a wax warmer”… and “Where did all this popcorn come from?” But then, the worst of it happens and you hear your kid yell from the toilet “MOM, DID YOU GET THE TOILET PAPER?’ and sadly with our heads hanging low ‘we run back to Target.’