TARGET SHOES: Why I Love/Hate Them

I love Target. It's an upscale Walmart on a upper class American "I don't care that I am paying $2.00 more for paper towels because I can kind of throw my money around" budget. Although when you walk in, the smell of metal and popcorn smacks you in the face (except in the new one my husband informed me just now), after a while all the pretty colors whisk you away into a happy land of Mossimo dresses,  capris, and mix and match bikinis galore! The attire never seems to fit quite right, but we buy it anyhow- hoping that we, ourselves, will look just as cute as the advertisements in magazines showing off multicolored fantacy picnics with the most adorable flatware or some kind of beach scene with beach balls, cocktails with twisty straws and little umbrellas hanging off the sides, and girlfriends walking around having fun. (See pic below.)

 So let me now get to my main event, the all awaited topic: the Target shoe department. When I come across these 5 -6 isles of intrigue and desire my eyes glaze over as if I have become another person not of this world. I know my body reacts to the stimuli of the shoe department: elevated heart rate, increased breathing, adrenal glands in full swing. Should I start with the sandals? Boots? In Florida, Oh, my! Flats? Bedazzled loafers??!!! I steer clear of the high heels- there is no in-between here, it is flat as a pancake or high as a stiletto and I, my friends, am not the walk in pain for fashion kinda gal. Target does have a nice little array of fashion forward shoes with their many color choices, latest trends, and you have to give them props for keeping the whole "rain boots" thing in fashion going on...I haven't brought myself to buy a pair, although the idea has been tickling my interest for some time now.

So are you in the vortex with me yet? My Target shoe vortex? Because this is where I get myself in trouble...I am so drunk on how cute the shoes are, and how affordable they may be, that I tend to overlook several obvious things that lerk over me and go from a lerk to a thorn in my side as soon as I get home from my trip. First of all, as with the clothes, the shoes never seem to fit quite right. Yes, when I try them on (even though they are attached to each other by a flipsy flopsy rubber band type deal) I am convinced they fit perfectly so I don't walk around in them (also due to the flipsy flopsy rubber band, I just don't want to fuss with it all), the moment I am out of the store and slip them babies on, they are scraping my toes, heel, and/or ankle, making my feet unbearably sweaty, and causing me to walk with a Quazimoto limp in order to keep my foot from popping out of them. And yet I was so convinced! Second of all, what I am telling myself is affordable, really isn't all that much worth it. (Please take my money, PLEASE!!!!). I could probably get better quality from a department store, Marshalls, TJ Maxx (yeah yeah, sister companies), especially during sale times...but again I was Target shoe drunk; not thinking clearly.

Third of all I have this really, really, really dumb habit of thinking that I am never going to need to ever return my Target shoes, so as soon as I leave the store I think I unknowingly toss out my receipt and do away with any tags, stickers, or proof of purchase because I am just so in love that I guess I don't want the option of being able to get rid of them. Unfortunately I found that I have about 10 pairs of barely used Target shoes that look really pretty lined up in rainbow color order in my closet.

 What have we learned here today?

1) Target creates an unhealthy drunk-like state that makes us buy stuff (shoes).

2) Nothing fits.

3) We buy it all anyways.

4) You can return stuff without a receipt- but you only get a gift card back for the value that it currently is going for. ($5.35 sucks when you paid $19.99).

I hope someone reading this can relate- otherwise I am yet again on my own. I hope you enjoyed my venture into the love/hate relationship that I have, I am sure there will be more to come.