planetdan

Wednesday, December 20, 2006 :::

Shopping Cart Chaos

I finished up my Christmas shopping at Target this evening. Somehow stocking stuffers and wrapping accoutrements cost me nearly $200. But the excessive crowd and the manic atmosphere got me flustered, so the majority of my time there was spent wandering glossy-eyed and aimless, trying to remember the internalized shopping list that I had previously and regrettably decided need not be written down.

At some point during my hour-long Target shopping extravaganza, I returned to where I thought I had parked my cart to find some unfamiliar items, including a snowglobe, a leather purse and a black coat with a hideous fur collar. In fact, nothing in this cart looked familiar to me. I stood for a minute, perplexed, and then started traversing the aisles to find my cart, which I had previously packed to the gills with typical Target purchases like shaving cream and toilet paper, but I had no luck. I decided to walk back to the last place that I actually remembered seeing my cart, which was halfway across the store in the giftwrap section, and sure enough it was there quietly awaiting my return.

But I was certain that I had brought my cart with me across the store before losing it, so my instant assumption was that I had accidentally grabbed another lady's cart, a good twenty minutes earlier, and had been mindlessly pushing it through multiple departments ever since. Suddenly the frazzled looks on the Target Team Members faces as they communicated via walkie talkie were starting to make sense. Someone had obviously reported their purse stolen and they were on a manhunt...

So I slyly returned to the department where I had discovered the mystery cart with the purse, only now there were multiple carts with multiple purses and I had no idea which cart was the errant one. Shockingly, hideous black fur collars are not rare in my neck of the woods. I pretended to peruse some random merchandise as I waited for people to come back to claim their carts, hoping that I could simply assume that any cart leftover would be the one I had inadvertently stolen from the giftwrap department. I didn't want to grab the wrong cart AGAIN, after all. I had been lucky enough not to have gotten tackled by some pissed off Target bargain-hunter the first time I grabbed the wrong cart, so I wasn't about to take the same risk again.

After waiting fifteen minutes for fate to sort out the cart situation for me, I started to imagine the Target Team Members checking the store security tape, frantically searching for the thief who had callously stolen some poor lady's purse and coat the week before Christmas. So I bailed.

All I could do at that point was hope that someone would find the "misplaced" cart and return it to its proper owner. I can only imagine how I would have felt had I been a woman shopping at Target and returned to where I thought I had parked my cart, and purse, only to find them missing. I probably really ruined her evening. And she had probably planned on getting all her Christmas shopping done tonight. And now she'll have to finish another time when she is less prepared, and her gift choices will be shoddy and rushed and therefore poorly thought-out, resulting in disappointed gift-receivers and decades of resentment and hurt feelings.

Karma is going to bite me in the ass BIG TIME for that one. Dammit.

::: posted by dan at 10:54 PM :: [ link ] :: (24) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

24 previous comments:

Why didn’t you just go to a Target team memebr and explain your mistake?

By

Anonymous, at 12:17 AM

thats why your not supposed to put your personal items in your cart . Target as signs telling you that people!

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george86, at 1:12 AM

well I agree with george86- if she left her personal items in the cart unattended it is her own fault. However late the advice is now, if you had just gone to a Target employee, you could've checked the purse for ID, paged the woman overhead, and you would've ended up the hero in the story with the Karma kissing your butt instead of biting it.

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Anonymous, at 1:50 AM

I'm with Dan. How would he check the ID when he couldn't even pick out which cart was hers?

I hope you at least pulled a good amount of cash from her wallet before you left it.

(my word verification looks kind of obscene: "fykgfchm")

By

Erik, at 4:52 AM

well, I had to do a lot of reading before I got my chuckle.

.... from Erik way down at comment no. 4!!! Ima try to use that obscene verification phrase a lot today, "f*cking F chum!" The client will love it.

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Anonymous, at 7:51 AM

I think your Target cart mistake happened because karma was getting you back for those Christmas cards you did for T-bone.

Just a thought.

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Anonymous, at 10:53 AM

Oh dear, Dan. Now you're never going to get the Princess Pony that we aLL knew you had your eye on! Karma's quite the crafty biotch.

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Alicia, at 11:56 AM

really funny story.
I have one, too.
last night I was at Target, and my cart turned up missing.

too bad I don't have my purse, because I just learned that I need to buy a more fashionable coat.

By

Anonymous, at 1:02 PM

Cute story...good karma, bad karma, either way...I just hope the purse matched your outfit!

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ntrudr, at 1:10 PM

What's the shaving cream for?

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Anonymous, at 4:33 PM

you make me smile and you're hot to trot...minnesota should be the new locale for "Men in Trees"

By

Robert, AZ, at 4:50 PM

wait I thought hot to trot meant mad. I am confused...

I have left parties with other peoples cell phones... 4 of my freinds all had the same one. I had to put a huge sticker so i could find mine drunk.

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Anonymous, at 9:41 PM

hot to trot means you're ready to have sex dontcha know?

i haven't been in a target since late last january & hopefully won't be for awhile longer. those big discount stores are frightening w/their obnoxious fluorescent lighting, wide aisles & wider white trash!

your story just confirms what i've known all along: the music they play is designed to confuse shoppers, make them buy more pointless merchandise they don't need & slowly go mad.

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August, at 4:38 AM

A new target opened not even a mile from my place, and I go there after work, leaving glassy-eyed and numb every time. But I keep going back. It's like crack.

And that bitch should have never left her purse in the cart. No karma worries for you. From my standpoint, You taught her a lesson. So, in a way, you've earned karma points; you've done your holiday good will!

By

Robert, at 10:40 AM

Dan,

I had a nightmare about you &
your house last night.

I think I overdosed on your picture galleries yesterday.

Merry Christmas!

By

SandyCA, at 2:03 PM

This is what is wrong with the midwest. You don't leave your purse in an unattended cart, and if you do, you don't give anyone else agita for wandering off with it.

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Anonymous, at 8:50 PM

In my world, "Hot to Trot" is a really stellar movie that involves both Bobcat Goldthwait and a talking horse that gives stock tips. And I wonder why I'm single.

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J-Money, at 10:07 AM

August,
If you don't shop at target, where on earth do you shop? I wouldn't guess Wal-mart they are nasty.

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Anonymous, at 12:44 PM

can we assume that the absence of posts for 4 days means they did view the security camera? Oh I hope not Dan, you are way too cute and soft for prison. I can't bear that you'd be somebody's cellmate/bitch

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Anonymous, at 4:21 AM

I was so happy to see your posting as the same thing happened to me, and not in the crazy daze that is xmas. No mine was on a busy saturday and I was re stocking on shampoo and an other feminine accreutements.

I took a shopping cart that had a giant bedspread and some other thing and it took me about 20 minutes that it was not my cart.

I went back and found my cart and just left the stolen one in the main aisle. Then I stood in a side aisle just to see if the lost cart was found and sure enough I saw happy reunion between shopper and cart.

Than went merrily on my way.

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fancymeplainlp, at 1:17 PM

anon, no i don't shop at walmart cause it's much worse than target. i do shop at rite aid(which probably isn't much better than target)but i know that they pay their employees above average wages and health benefits. the one i go to is a smaller one. i also shop at a local grocery store.

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August, at 1:57 AM

My cart got stolen once at Jewel as my son went to the bathroom. I grabbed him and started walking furiously, as a woman 5 ft. in front of me abruptly stopped, reversed, left her cart and went looking for hers. I couldn't believe the gall.ut at least I got my purchased items back.

By

Anonymous, at 8:14 PM

So, I got this email today, and just HAD to share it on here.

Subject: The best screen saver ever!!!!! [Yes, there were 5 exclamation points]
Message: Apparently this is the most popular screen saver in the US.

Followed by a link to none other than Planetdan and your falling georgie.
Small world, huh? Of course, I first stumbled upon planetdan when I received the very same link, oh, over a year ago.
But I had no idea that your link was the most popular screen saver in the US. Congrats.

By

lola, at 10:03 PM

Dan, this made me laugh. And I don't laugh.

By

Preston, at 10:02 PM

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