They should call it "Crosshairs"

Our trip to Target
by Kelly

Five years of marriage have taught me a lot of things. Among other things, I have learned that holiday decorations are a legitimate source of happiness, otherwise normal people can be consumed by books about vampires, Oprah Winfrey has all the answers, and nine or more innings of baseball are not as enthralling to everyone as they are to me. This is the story of how I learned about the retail chain Target, and the clear and present danger it represents to me personally.
So today we went to Target. Five years of marriage, all within five minutes of at least one Target, and I still fall for the same trick every time: Kim writes a list, I assume the purpose of the trip is to obtain the items on the list. But there is one wife and a board room of giggling executives who know full well that the list is irrevelant the moment it crosses the threshold of those automatic doors. Here we are greeted by a welcoming array of colorful displays, large air-brushed, happy people engaged in various versions of domestic bliss. We see lots of red, enforcing the concept of "home," as if this is really where we belong and the days or even weeks we spent outside of this haven have been nothing short of wasted.

The fun begins as we stumble upon several aisles of extremely cheap items, where $1 signs on packaged plastic toys or home decorations serve the vital role of a "warm-up" for our shopping experience. Buying things is more similar to using drugs than we would like to believe, and if they can get us to "try it once" and establish a little habit of deciding to spend, then they have us.

But today we keep our initial momentum through the entryway, avoid eye contact with the blissful illustrations, and plow right by the one-dollar section at the front of the store. We have a list, which I make the mistake of asking about within the first thirty seconds of the experience.

"What is on our list? Maybe we can split up and get it done faster."

"I was sort of hoping we could be together."

"Of course. Together."

So we head to the children's clothing, where we look for toddler underwear, the first item on our list. Bennett promptly chooses Shrek over Pirates of the Caribbean, after comprehending that the Lighting McQueen pairs are not his size. Next to the undies are pajamas, and Asher has recently grown out of several pairs, and it is this moment that I realize I am stuck.

The problem I have at Target is that I consider myself a "rational decision-maker." For each potential purchase, I obtain information like cost, quality, expected usage and lifetime, available substitutes, etc. With this information, I am able to calculate the net benefit of such a purchase to my family, and weigh it against the retail price. When I enter the twilight zone that is Target, this type of rational thinking dies a bloody death. In the first place, everything at Target could be justified (in most cases with apparently good reasoning) as a "need" by a specific demographic. Unfortunately for me, I am married to a member of this demographic, and I repeatedly consent to go shopping with her. Secondly, the prices at Target are almost always surprisingly low, meaning I would almost always expect to pay more for a given item than I see written on the price tag. So when push comes to shove, we end up buying everything we pick up because a) we need it (even though it wasn't on our list), and b) it costs such a small amount it is impossible to resist.

Target is a veritable Venus Fly Trap. Here are some statistics from today's excursion to prove my points. We started with a list of eight items. One was not in stock; a second I decided was too expensive and we resisted purchasing. With the remaining six items on the list, we made 33 individual purchases. While 24 of these fell into the categories of list items (we were buying baby food and potty treats and things like that), eight were not conceived of before entering the store (one item could not be deciphered from the receipt). So it sounds like we did pretty well, right? This is the interesting part: the total cost of the trip was $103.69 before tax. So the average purchase of this trip was $3.14 (coincidentally equal to the geometric ratio "Pi"). This low average cost helped us throughout the trip to feel like we were not spending very much money. As we bask in our dillusional savings, the cart fills up and we're out $103.69 plus tax.

The most interesting part of the analysis is the average price of "list items" ($2.13) versus "non-list items" ($6.14). Kim will point out that this comparison is unfair because it includes all the baby food and candy bars, but I think the trend would probably hold for most Target trips, though maybe not as pronounced.

In conclusion, I have decided that Target has officially put an end to rational decision-making by blurring the lines with low-cost, useful items that people don't tend to think of before meandering through the aisles. In a way, I am proud of them for this accomplishment, which has most certainly made some people very rich. On the other hand, I have decided not to enter those automatic doors again, at least not on a family outing. But after a post like this, you probably won't hear anyone complain.

Algebra Quiz: Can you calculate the price of the undeciphered item?