HIT & MISS(ONI)

Missoni for Target!! Mens sweater! Gogogo.

-Text from my son 9/13/11

Yesterday morning, I was minding my own business at home when I received the missive from my son. (Missive. Hahahaha. I didn’t even plan that.) If I were to read between the lines and paraphrase his text it would sound something like, “Get your ass to Target. What kind of mother are you?” It was not yet 8 a.m. Apparently, the kids in the carpool had Missoni on their minds, even if I did not.

Why I took this as a legitimate challenge—a “go for the gold” race into the history books—is beyond me. In reality, it was a summons to get out of my pajamas, get into the car and drive to the Target in West Hollywood. I would argue that the store is not really in West Hollywood but I’m sure that some city official would prove me wrong. (I’ll just say that it’s in West Hollywood the same way the college I attended is in Bronxville, New York. I think people feel better paying a high tuition if the address says Bronxville as opposed to Yonkers. And we can discuss the whole Beverly Hills P.O. thing some other time.)

I must admit, for a moment I thought I was getting a jump on things. It was only about 8:15 a.m. when I got in the car. But, as I was driving up La Brea, I began to fantasize about the big, black Mercedes in front of me. I was sure that we were racing to the same destination. I imagined a fight over a parking space, ending with me telling a bejeweled and well-dressed woman to go to the real Missoni on Rodeo Drive. Her car practically dictated that. When the Mercedes changed lanes, I realized it was a man driving. He continued north on La Brea, undoubtedly to a better world, leaving me in the turn lane for Target. This did give me (false) hope that the entire universe was not headed to one place.

As I turned to go into the underground parking lot, I noticed there were about five hundred cars in the exit lane. Before getting in I was already thinking about how I would get out. I found a place to park pretty quickly, so the exit line could only mean one thing. All those people had already been in the store buying. It was 8:35 a.m.

Stepping off the elevator near women’s clothing and accessories, I saw one empty rack after another, each with a sign above reading “Missoni for Target”. The racks looked like metal stick figures, arms outstretched, with signs for heads. In fact, there were real people in the store. Real shoppers, their carts piled sky-high with all things Missoni. I don’t even think they knew what they had grabbed. It reminded me of a game show on TV when I was young. There was a race through a supermarket. Teams grabbed things off the shelves and the value of the items in the cart determined the winner. People screamed, “Go for the meat! Go for the meat!” It was like that. “Go for the zigzags!”

Remembering why I had come to Target in the first place, I headed over to the men’s department. Cleaned out. I looked really hard, just in case I had missed anything. I had not. What I did find was a cluster of women in a corner of the men’s section closest to the line for the dressing rooms. It looked like a long wait and no one was interested. One lovely (not so young) lady was stripped down to her black lace bra and a skimpy version of bicycle-shorts, trying on clothes. She must do this professionally. As she made her keep-or-ditch decisions, she guarded her “must haves” with her life while offering up her discards to others gathered around. No simple deal, however, as she seemed to offer her “no’s” only to people who would trade her for something else to try on. I’m telling you.

As I soon discovered, this bartering was going on all throughout the store. I’ll trade you this coat for a make-up bag. (“Please, all I wanted was a makeup bag,” said the cute, blonde girl with bangs.) I’ll give you this pillow for that dress. The fact that they serve completely different purposes did not seem to matter. One woman—with no cart and about five items clutched in her hands and hung over her arms—told me that the configuration of what she was carrying was the result of multiple trades. None of what she was about to buy was what she had started out with fifty minutes earlier. All of this was like watching a show to me. I had nothing to offer, having arrived at Target thirty- five minutes after the doors opened. The early bird catches the worm. The mom late to Target catches hell. I started practicing my “you wouldn’t want the sweater if thousands of other people are wearing it” speech.

The number of suitcases people were buying fascinated me, as well. Try to picture the following nightmare without, literally, having a seizure: You are at the baggage carousel, waiting with the rest of the people from your flight. When the buzzer sounds and the conveyor belt starts to move, spewing out 200+ pieces of luggage, how do you tell which zigzagged, striped, black and white, multicolored bag is yours? Really, I ask you. If you get home and open up a suitcase full of cocaine, and some unsuspecting drug smuggler (halfway across town) ends up with all of your Agent Provocateur lingerie and whips, what do you do? I will say, the people buying the suitcases looked like this exact scenario could happen to them. In the future, probably better to stick with American Tourister and a ribbon.

Other important things I learned yesterday morning? The Target in Manhattan was emptied of Missoni merchandise within fourteen minutes of opening. The store’s website crashed at 5 a.m. And when I ran into an acquaintance (I tried to talk her into giving me the men’s sweater in her cart), I said that maybe I should have gone to a different Target. “Oh no…” she said, “The bitches are everywhere.”