In a suburb like Naperville, there are very limited options in terms of activities for last-minute hangouts. You could go thrifting at the local Goodwill but the clothes there are always a hit or miss, and recently, the hangers have been riddled by last season’s maternity clothes. You could go for a late night drive with your friends but you can only go on so many car rides before the costs of gas begin to pile up monstrously high. You could go to the nearest Target and just loiter with no intention of purchasing anything at all, casually meandering through the aisles and basking under the fluorescent lights. And yeah, the last one sounds like the best option.

Now, there’s a reason as to why Target has such an alluring feel to it, a real world example of positive phototaxis; as a frequent visitor of Target, I’ve deduced that there are 3 primary reasons as to why it’s the best store to ever exist.

 

1. The iconic Target carts

Don’t lie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Perhaps one of the most defining aspects, the shopping carts offered at Target department stores are unique to the corporation itself. Unless you’re a shopping connoisseur, it’s nearly impossible for you to differentiate between the carts found in Jewel Osco and the ones from H-Mart. Instead of the rickety metal carts and singular functioning wheel that seems to defy all laws of physics in going precisely the direction that you’re trying not to go, Target’s sturdy and durable carts never fail to glide smoothly across the vinyl floors of the store.

Moreover, the reinforced edges of the shopping cart ensure that any product that you’re trying to purchase, regardless of how miniscule, won’t have the opportunity to slip out of the cracks. Though there are still holes (sorry to those with trypophobia), they are small enough to prevent slippage, but also large enough so that you’re still able to see what items you’ve already stored in there. These Target carts allow you to invest any extra energy into bettering your shopping experience, instead of spending that time wondering how, while you had turned away for a split second in search of toothpaste, your cart has miraculously transported all the way over to Zimbabwe.

 

2. The cleanliness

Shopping at Target is like walking into the precise organizational model that your mom always wanted you to adopt for your own room. Every item has a rightful place on the shelves and are lined up in an easily comprehensible manner, whether that be in terms of color or by price point. When you walk down the aisles of Target, you can clearly see every product that they are offering – there aren’t any strays hiding between random products, no casually strewn items in giant discount buckets that make your head spin as you cautiously pick through them.

Yet, it is not just the overall layout of the Target store that is appealing – the individual products that Target sells effuse a sense of cleanliness as well. Target largely sells products with clean and neat packaging, with tiny logos and bright but plain colors. Even their own brands – A New Day, Market Pantry, Archer Farms, etc. – prioritize simplicity in their graphic designs. Picking up these items makes you feel as if you’re engaging in productive shopping, in that you’re maybe purchasing something healthy or sustainable, even if it’s a 3-tier chocolate cake.  

 

3. The free wi-fi

Name another store that offers free wi-fi to its customers. Sure, Starbucks offers it, but it’s often clogged up by the random business people sitting in the back sipping on their plain black coffees, decked out in their suits and sitting on their video calls. But Starbucks is obligated to offer wi-fi – its whole premise is a coffee shop that offers seats for its customers to get work done. Without wi-fi, much of Starbucks would lose its appeal. 

On the other hand, Target has absolutely no obligations to offer wi-fi. It’s supposed to be a one-stop-shop center, where you go in and get out of the store with the products on your shopping list checked off. However, how many times have you realistically left Target without picking up random stray items on the side? That’s right, zero. Target’s wi-fi promotes this shopping journey as an immersive experience, elevating it into so much more than just a store.

 

Yes, I did just psycho-analyze my reasoning as to why Target is the absolute most appealing store to shop at. Maybe one (or all three!) of these points resonated with you, or maybe you just enjoy going to Target to see your employee-friend in their firefighter red uniform shirts. Either way, the takeaway from this blog is just a PSA to be more appreciative of the Target shopping carts.

Statistically, every person in this world has roughly 6 doppelgangers. Though that may be true for outward appearances (I’ve had quite a few people tell me that I look like Maia Shibutani; I don’t see it at all, but that’s besides the point), I am convinced that I have at least 6 million doppelgangers in terms of who I am as a person on the inside— there is quite literally nothing distinctly unique about me; I have never once in my life had an original thought or idea cross my mind. In all honesty, I am pretty much a carbon copy of the stereotypical teenage girl, and that’s precisely why I enjoy reading.

Instead of viewing the world through my own lens (and consequently, a very monotonous lens), I much prefer to look at things from an entirely new angle. In novels and literature, the author and characters tend to bear viewpoints that vary so greatly from mine; seeing the world from their perspectives sheds light on an idea that was initially seemingly one-dimensional to me. When I read, I’m able to gain some insight into a whole new universe of thought, one that my own brain never would have been able to come up with. In the past few years, being able to learn new things through books has been the main reason why I read, but before high school, I used to read for an entirely different reason.

When I think back to my childhood (many, many decades ago), I would acknowledge that I’ve always been quite the voracious reader. In my elementary school days, I used reading as a form of productive procrastination from my actual schoolwork. Instead of diligently working through my single-digit multiplication tables or practicing my cursive lettering on the lined paper worksheets, my parents would come home to find me sitting cross-legged underneath the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of a book. When they reprimanded me for not focusing on school, I would make up some halfway believable excuse that reading was part of my homework. 

And it was! I did in fact have routine reading logs waiting to be filled out and turned in every Monday, but I doubt my teacher expected to see my weekly 15+ hours of reading. Looking back, she probably thought that I was just woefully bad at lying and was making up the numbers as I went. Ms. Manade, if you’re reading this, I swear I genuinely was just a bookworm back then!! (Also, I did just search you up on Facebook to verify that I spelled your name right, and a very belated congratulations on your retirement.) For my younger self, though, reading wasn’t something that really held a true purpose for me, and simply served as an escapism from my actual responsibilities. Regardless, reading has always been something that I enjoyed, and continue to do so now.

On the other hand, writing has been more so of a struggle for me than reading. For me, it is much easier to make something out of an already existing object or idea, instead of making something out of nothing. When I was younger, I wrote relentlessly; I had documents upon documents of fictional short stories with nonexistent plots. But, none of these ever ended up being completed works, having been abandoned just days after their initialization.

My parents called it the “3-Day Curse”, where any of my writing was sure to be forgotten after a maximum of three days. This phenomenon of losing interest in my work so quickly was often accredited to me being so young and sporadic, but in a more analytical sense, I think it happened because of my love for perfection. Even though I knew that editing was an option, I refused to write anything that I didn’t deem to be completely flawless. Ten years later, this is still something I tend to struggle with. However, I’m slowly but surely learning to rid myself of that mindset of always having to be perfect; perfection is not an immediate result, but rather a continual work in progress.

And there you have it, folks! That’s my (relatively boring) journey with reading and writing. There’s no grand, catalytic moment in my journey to appreciating the art of either, but it is something that has shaped my life in small but meaningful ways, and I hope to continue working towards bettering my relationship with both. 

hey friends !!! don’t mind this fun little test run