Bullseye

After months...nay years...of argument, votes, debate, and finally resignation (not unlike the stages of grief!), Davis recently celebrated the opening of a new Target store out by the railroad tracks.

I have to admit that I really found it difficult to get incensed about it, one way or the other. The only thing that I don't like about stores like Target and Borders moving into town is that it takes us further and further from individualization as a town, and more subject to what I have come to call the "USA Today-ing of America," that syndrome where people can hop on a plane, get off at an airport, stay at a Holiday Inn without having the leave the airport grounds, have dinner at Denny's or Applebees, pick up their USA Today in the morning, attend their meetings, get back on the plane and head home again without knowing whether they were in Seattle or Houston or New Orleans.

But that's what we are becoming. A homogenized nation where mom and pop stores are being replaced by big box stores and the individual is looked at as some weirdo.

That having been said, once the big boxes establish themselves, I become a devotee just like the rest of the townsfolk. I am nothing if not a pod person ready to follow my leaders wherever they lead me. Most of the time.

And so today being a holiday (not that that means much when you are retired!), I decided to take the opportunity to check out the new store. Besides, I was running low on "miscellaneous sundries."

My first thought is that you definitely know you're in a university town when you sit at the intersection of "Target Main Driveway" and "Fermi Place."

Call me a snob, but I don't somehow equate Enrico Fermi with the average Target customer. But this is Davis, after all...and it's the boutique winery that is on Fermi Place anyway.

As I turned into the parking lot, I wasn't sure if I was going to a store or to the Sacramento Airport. The parking lot stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. And as I got out of the car and looked up, I wasn't sure if I felt safe, or like I was living in a George Orwell envisioned world.

I parked so far from the entrance that I halfway expected there to be a bus stop where I could wait for transportation, but no. I walked to the entrance and entered a world about the size that the town of Davis was when we first moved here. The place is enormous. It makes Costco seem tiny.

The check-out stands start where I am standing and go back so far this photo does not show the end of the row. And remember that for every stand you can actually see, there is another cash register to the right of the one showing in this photo.

But for all its size, there is one area in which it is sorely lacking. The photo below shows about a quarter of the size of the area where ladies go to look for clothes. The other side of the aisle contains the rest of the clothing for ladies.

And the photo below is the complete fat lady section. The outlined portion, not the entire photo--the clothes on the right of the white box are maternity clothes.

Not only that but the style of clothes shows that Target has given no thought whatsoever to the kind of clothes that fat women want to wear.

While this may be a lovely looking top, I am here to tell you that no fat woman wants to wear a top with an elasticized lower edge. It may look cute on the hanger, but if you put it on, it's going to ride up over your fat hips and look just awful.

They did have one rack of hoodies that actually went up to size 4 (one). That's larger than I wear, but I decided to try on a size 4, which wouldn't even zip up in front of me.

In fairness, the thing was made in Cambodia and I've seen Cambodian women and I think they probably can't even conceive of someone my size. Yet a fair number of your average Target shoppers, especially those my age, are closer to my size than to the petite size, I suspect.

The whole fat lady department was entirely too depressing, so I decided to check out the rest of the store which is, as I have said, enormous.

I passed through the baby section, which is even larger than the ladies' section, and did a zig zag through the aisles of various foodstuffs, picking up things that looked interesting, like cocoa roast almonds and jalapeno tortillas. I was just starting to think that you could buy all of your foods here if only they had fresh produce, when I came upon the fresh produce section. Of course, their potatoes, for example, were $1.29 each (because they were individually wrapped), so it was not exactly someplace you would regularly come for your food stuffs, but they did have Yoplait yogurt on sale for 50 cents a container, nearly half of what I pay in the stores where I normally shop.

I went through the kitchen gadgets section to see if there was anything there I couldn't live without. I was intrigued to see this "batter dispenser" for use with pancake batter.

I have one of those gadgets too. I call it "a spoon." Amazing what people will pay $15 for! I decided I could live without the batter dispenser.

By the time I'd seen most of the store, I had walked farther than I usually do on the treadmill, so I figured it was a good exercise if nothing else. But I had also managed to find nearly $100 worth of miscellaneous sundries, so I had something to show for my hour walking around the big box store.

And best of all, I had dinner not only for tonight, but for tomorrow night as well, so I don't have to think about what to cook for two whole nights. That's always a good day.