I just got back from a run to Target. Buying things like toilet bowl cleaner and a shower liner were easy tasks, but when it came to finding the object that made me decide on Target over Meijer or some other store in the first place, it was a pain in the neck. I store my makeup on my bathroom sink in a cute little plastic bag thing that is suspended on little metal feet. Problem is, metal in a bathroom rusts and stains things. On a side note, why do so many things intended to go in the bathroom on your sink or tub contain metal? I wanted to replace this little storage creature with some solid plastic cube in a pretty color or pattern, and I figured Target would be the place to find such a box because they generally have cute apartment-decorating things.

I first checked their make-up section but all I found there in terms of storage were cloth bags with zippers or lidded metal+plastic boxes. I don’t want my makeup tucked away under a lid, nor do I want cloth or metal anything on my sink. I moved on to their bathroom section and found storage for the shower, intended to hold shampoo bottles. I continued my search in the storage section, finding a lot of plastic crates that were way too big and full of holes. Some exuberant clerk tried to help me find something and we eventually ended up in the kitchen storage area where he suggested a Rubbermaid food container and I could just remove the lid. Problem there is those things are clear plastic and I wanted something more decorative. I figured I’d go to Bed Bath and Beyond to try my luck there, when I glanced across the aisle into the toy department. They had their summer toys on display along with beach paraphernalia, which included sand buckets. My brain-hamsters kicked into full gear and I wandered over. I found a tiny blue sand bucket with an orange handle, solid plastic, no holes, and the perfect size for my makeup collection:

I would have preferred different colors, like maybe lime green and purple, or pink and brown, but I can deal with the colors since everything else was spot-on what I needed. Children’s beach toys FTW!

But that’s not why I hate shopping. Why I hate shopping is because of two things: 1) clothes are annoyingly not sized to my body and 2) toddlers piss me off.

First the clothes. I browsed some of the shirts and summery cargo pants and found the whole process frustrating. With the shirts, a plain solid-colored shirt was labeled as “fitted” so it was slim-fitting, which is meh but I can take it, but it was also thin, so it hugged my stomach and clearly showed my belly button. That’s just weird to me unless I’m specifically going for the belly-delineating look. So I went up to a large size to counteract the fittedness and moved on to polo shirts. I tried on a medium and it engulfed me since it was marked as “relaxed” fitting. Whatever, so I bought a small and it suited me nicely. It was a good length, too; I have a longish torso and often have problems with shirts showing my midriff when they’re supposed to cover it. So I ended up with a small and a large from the same brand because of relaxed/fitted style differences.

The pants I tried on, all in my jean size mind you, all looked horrible on me. They were the thin cargo-pant style with slanted hip pockets and a low rise, and from what I could tell, they were all designed for men because there was no room whatsoever for your butt. When I got them on, the waistband at the back was way low because of my ass occupying space, and the waistband in the front was where it should normally sit. Because I do have a butt, though, and all the pant real estate was spent on containing said butt, there was this odd shift such that the crotch was way up; that’s just as uncomfortable for women as I would wager it is for men. So, no pants. I will try my luck elsewhere, perhaps at Old Navy where I usually end up buying my jeans. I hear tell that clothes designed for black women would suit me great, since the pants are intentionally curvy, but anytime I’ve checked out such brands or stores, their prices are higher than I want to pay. :(

As for toddlers and why they bug me, the entire time I was there, wandering throughout the whole store, there was some squalling kid within ten yards of me. I don’t know if motherly instincts don’t kick in until you’re actually about to pop, but I detest screeching toddlers. I hastily went about trying to find whatever item on my list I needed, just so I could sooner GET. AWAY. FROM. THAT. NOISE. Maybe babies are like cats or stray dogs: once one starts hollering, all the others have to join in. I know it wasn’t the same child the whole time because at one point I saw some little girl go running down the aisle, blubbering and presumably chasing a parent. Protip: if they see you start to run, you’ll never make your getaway; maybe you could stash them in a bin somewhere while you try to escape? Anyway, a few minutes later when I changed aisles, there was some small boy also wailing just outside my aisle. I guess the makeup section, halfway across the store from the baby section, is also a popular haunt for young mothers and their progeny. I text-messaged Jon when I left saying that I managed to leave Target without committing any acts of infanticide.