Target

The other day I figured out that I spend about $50.00 - $75.00 a month on Odwalla fruit smoothies, this is a substantial sum of cash......so my innovative mind got to thinking that there must be a better way.....Voila, I decided that I'd make my own fruit smoothies - I've got a food processor and like 16 hand blenders surely this was accomplishable. (Okay, actually the whole 'make your own smoothies' idea was all Emily)

So, I need to get some form of tupperware-esque bottle/pitcher in order to keep my future product fresh and consumable for at least three days (b/c if I had to blend on a daily basis - I would totally give up and resort back to my Odwalla). Off to target I went. I hate stores like target - they're just too fucking big - you have to spend at least 20 minute search for the department of the store that contains the product you are looking for -- but alas, I perservered and I found and purchased two, small (1.5 liter) air-tight pitchers. Though there were two Target-situations that made this trip notable.

First, while looking at ladles (I'm in a soup-producing mood right now) there was a couple (man/woman) down the aisle from me looking at coffee carafes. They picked one up that they liked and then the guy looked to the back of the box and exclaimed "Damn, they outsourced - this was made in Spain. Put it back." (at which point I almost burst into laughter) The woman was like "let's just get it anyway" to which he responded "No, I'm only buying American" - I nearly broke down, so I quickly extricated myself from the housewares department. I mean really - anyone who has ever read a newspaper knows that some places can make certain things cheaper than they can be made in the U.S., and isn't this why people shop at Target so they can get stuff cheap. The 'outsource' comment was totally something that he heard a soundbyte about during last year's election, and has little relevance to the coffee carafe market. Though I suppose if the "made in america" trait of any given product provides the consumer with some value then all is well in the marketplace and we can expect to see more coffee carafes bearing an american flag on the box. I guess my general problem/concern is why this generates 'value' to the coffee carafe consumer? If this consumer really was concerned about American Coffee Carafe makers and their employees, then s/he should support nationalized healthcare such that american business can be more competitive in the world market. (More on this later).

The other interesting (??) thing that happened at Target was as follows: I had checked out and was proceeding to the parking lot, when I passed through the first set of doors (along with several others) - the alarm (inventory control) went off, so I stopped and turned around, and awaited a member of the Target Personnel to attend to the situation. A women came over, looked me up and down, said "Was it you, who set off the alarm?", to which I responded "Yeah" - then she looked at me and said "You can go". It made me wonder what their response would have been if I looked different or was dressed differently....it just made wonder.....I don't know....whatever.