Off Target: Bullseye on the Bullshit

by Ct Kingston · View Comments


I’ve been gone. Absent from my website and away from these here Americas. I was residing in places with buildings built hundreds of years ago and yet they look as young as Joan Rivers.

During my travels, numerous crazy-amazing, incredible things took place. And due to that, or maybe despite that, I feel the need to make my return post about Target. The popular American store offering a plethora of shabby wares.
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I come back to the good ol’ red, white ‘n’ blue, dragging in suitcases and glorious memories, all of which dissipate as soon as I realize my vacuum cleaner no longer works. Like most people, first thing I do upon returning home is suck-up all the carpet filth. But my vacuum, bought at Target 4 months ago, no longer functions. When I flipped the switch, the damn thing vomited back all the old dirt from months past, made a scary noise, then died.

Target fucking sucks. It’s not only the shitty appliances that blow chunks at Target, it’s the everything. Well, almost everything… Some helpful advice when shopping there is to make sure you open the package immediately. Do it even while in the store, before you buy it, if possible. It becomes annoying to drive back, furious, demanding a refund. By now the staff know me on a first-name basis. They don’t bother using my name though, instead they refer to me as, “The angry Bitch is back.”

A few of my favorite discoveries while ripping open the Target product containers are as follows:

  • The set of blue pillow cases, one with a white stain on it.
  • The Tupperware without tops for two of the containers.
  • The Crayola pack sans the black crayon.
  • The pantyhose with a rip on the left leg AND right leg.
  • The set of 8 steak knives with only 7, but including a random fork.

I could go on… As a matter of fact, I will. The only “good” thing about all these misfires is that Target doesn’t hassle you when you return faulty merchandise. The worst part of them taking it back, no questions asked, is how they seem to simply rewrap it, as if nothing ever happened, placing it right back on the shelf. Hence the cause for many of the mishaps inside 50 percent of the packages. Obviously no one would shop at Target if it didn’t offer convenience and cheap prices. And if it wasn’t located across the street from Starbucks, on every stinking street corner in America (a.k.a. conveniently located.)

I’ve decided to pay a little more cash for my necessary items, or resort to shoplifting, only at stores offering a higher caliber of goods. I’ll start with paying extra and if I can no longer afford to do that, I’ll switch to theft.

And you?

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Tagged as: America, Consumerism, Shopping, Target

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{ 45 comments }

Jeanne Veillette Bowerman

I can't even afford Target these days. Guess there's no place left for a starving artist to shop!
Welcome back to America ;)

jeffersonreid

Christina, This post is totally ON TARGET. The shoddy Chinese import crap is almost a mandatory return these days, which is a shame since Target used to be a great store. And I've had the same luck with vacuum cleaners from Tar-jhay…totally sucking and not in the way they're supposed to suck. Btw, I think I've got your two extra tupperware lids, or maybe you have my two extra containers. :^D

peri

Glad to have you back sucking in and spurting out some truth. On target and packaged perfect as usual;)

@MAS_is_more

I don't shop at Target much, but your post prompted me to think back on purchases I had made and you are totally correct. Well over 50% of the time I had to go back and return the item and then ended up going elsewhere to buy it. I loathe Walmart, but would sooner go there then back to Target. It is a pity because Target was much better before they expanded nationwide. Great post! Thank you! :)

Nini Baseema

Target clearly has a diffrent target group… LOL.

And I thought Germany is the only country with rubbish places like tht but- woah – obviously not! We do have this cheapo store called “KIK” that reminds me a lot on what you just described. They seem to have the SAME strategy about putting the stuff back into the shelfs – I mean WTF? And I kinda have the feeling that the Frenchies have their filthy stores as well. Maybe we should have made that trip to Belgium in order for you to be able to write about shitty stores from a cosmopolitan perspectives ! HA! ;) )

I wonder- would the people in Luxemburg put up with stuff like that? –> Serious question!

Dave Doolin

Welcome home, dearie.

If you choose to investigate your vacuum cleaner a little further, you may find enough hair to clean up a minor oil spill wrapped very tightly around the rotor brush.

Very tightly.

This is almost certainly the case when you get that rrrrrr…rrrrrr….rrrr sound and it then either shuts off or trips the circuit breaker (what we used to call “blowing a fuse.” back in the day. ahem.)

Dismantling your vacuum to get the hair out is loads of fun, and if you're just a little careful you won't have any pieces left over when you put it back together. I suggest you document this activity with extensive photographic evidence. And video. Definitely video.

laineyd7

I worked at a local department store (Boston area) in the 1970s, called Zayre. I don't know why it had that name. Anyway, it was definitely low end stuff and we had to take back any ol' thing the customer wanted to return. I'm not talking about cheap appliances that spew dirt or nylons with holes pre-drilled, I'm talking clothes that the customer had obviously worn a bunch of times and decided they didn't like them anymore, or what was once a decent cast iron skillet, which the customer had clearly left under a tree in Sherwood Forest to rust for a couple of weeks. Returned for full credit! Yikes! And sheesh!

Tina, I hope you find a vacuum that sucks really soon, before the cat hairs pile up too high. ;-) )

karen

I agree with Jefferson, you are ON TARGET as usual, Tina.
And welcome back – although I don't live here. Er, where you live, I mean.
But welcome all the same. And who likes their vacuums to spit anything back at them? The damn things are designed to SWALLOW not SPIT. Goddamn Target and all cheapo stores.
And yet, I shop there and at the $2 dollar stores…
Here is my latest Target experience:
I buy a sifter, the ones you click-click to sift your flour? I bring it home, click-click. Nothing. Click-click again. The sorry-ass thing couldn't sift my pee if it tried.
And i CAN'T return it cuz I already used it which is the only way to know if it works or in this case, doesn't.
BOO TARGET! BOO!

Susan Antony

I bought a DVD at Target last Saturday, there was no disc in the case.

ryancmiller

Christina,

First of all very nice to see you back online and blogging again. Actually laughed when reading this because i have recent memories of returning an antenna there a few weeks ago (bought it so i could watch the last few weeks of Lost then felt no need for tv). The antenna didn't work that well to begin with but what was really funny were the people in front of me at the customer service station and what they were returning. Absolutely tons of crap from housewares to inflatable pools. Retail in general makes me nervous so I try to steer clear of the big boxes as much as possible.

Nice to see you back by the way. Would like to hear about your adventures abroad soon!

Cheers

Ct Kingston

Haha, starving artist, eh?

Ct Kingston

I'll show you my bottoms, you can show me your tops. Team work.

Ct Kingston

Peri, I work for you now~! :)

Ct Kingston

Michael thanks for stopping by! I regret reminding you of your bad Target purchases. Forgive me. Try to block it out of your memory again, fast. You're right that Target used to be a great store. I'm not sure what the heck happened!

Ct Kingston

KIK might be the same thing! So the Germans and Frenchies have this junk too, haha. I may have gone into one while in Paris. It was mostly a grocery store but also sold tschotskes. The food looked foul, dirty packages like someone with grubby fingers was fiddling with it all day. They also had a plastic toy of some sort. I couldn't figure out what it was… I walked out without buying anything. I should of taken pics! I could have smeared the French with coverage on this store. You are so right!

Ct Kingston

Dave I tried the rotor brush fix, but it didn't work. That did work on my previous,previous vacuum though. I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's all planned obsolescence. Maybe they only make them to last 6-8 months. Bastards.

For you, when this new one breaks down, I'll take pics :)

Ct Kingston

Elaine,
this Zayre sounds like a hilarious place to get frustrated! It sounds so nutty too bad someone didn't make a documentary on it. haha. Can you imagine? Maybe Michael Moore could have directed it, haha

ZAYRE destroys COMMERCE one RETURN at a TIME

“clothes that the customer had obviously worn a bunch of times and decided they didn't like them anymore, or what was once a decent cast iron skillet, which the customer had clearly left under a tree in Sherwood Forest to rust for a couple of weeks.”

This is seriously a riot! Full credit too? I'm dyin' I'm dyin'!

Ct Kingston

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA to this:
“I buy a sifter, the ones you click-click to sift your flour? I bring it home, click-click. Nothing. Click-click again. The sorry-ass thing couldn't sift my pee if it tried. “

Karen, why is it I imagine you also vacuum up the filth after a trip? I can just see you, your arm working hard, moving the vacuum across the rug. I can hear you mumbling, “Ah you filth, I will kill you, you filth!”

Is this accurate?

“SWALLOW” ?? -in trying to keep my website more on the PG tip I'd kindly request you calm down Mz.Karen

Hey yeah, down with these cheapo stores and their BS products. Grrrr

Ct Kingston

Very funny!! And tragic :(

Ct Kingston

Thanks for the welcome back Ryan. Great to see you again as well.
The invention of inflatable pools always makes me laugh.

“Retail in general makes me nervous so I try to steer clear of the big boxes as much as possible.”
ha. Yes, yes.

karen

Haha, PG? Right. Okay then…
“Vacuums should not spit anything out. They should suck it all up.”
Better?
You imagine correct about the filth after the trip thing, by the way. Except I don't blame the filth. I blame the guy who sold me the sorry-ass vacuum. I have a vacuum guy, you see. He is a half-pro golfer who sells vacs to pay the rent. We have a sort-of understanding about filth and suction-
Oops. PG. I'll go now.
xo

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