Wednesday, October 2, 2019

The Nightmare called "The New Target"

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I don't think many people relish change.  But in the land of special needs sometimes the word change can send shivers up and down your spine as you anticipate the shrill and shrieking of your child with special need's screams if the unfamiliar gets yanked out from underneath them. 

I kind of feel that same way with Target's new store make-over.  It seriously feels the moment you walk through the doors like someone put you inside a snow globe and shook it up while you're spinning around dizzy.  What the hell? feels like an understatement.  People are raving about how some Target stores now have a Disney section, and how home decor just now sprouted as if Target just became a wannabe furniture outlet in the middle of retail clothing and home goods.  Wasn't it enough to mix grocery and retail?  Really Target.  You are blowing my ever loving mind.


And I liked Target.... the old Target that is.  It ranked right up there with my top fav's alongside Kohl's and continuous trips to Starbucks.  And as much as I dislike the special needs poem Trip to Holland, Target feels a lot like that.  I expected a normal trip.  A familiar trip.  A vacation to potentially a mildly redesigned store, that had more clothing and shoe options and maybe even sprinkled with more organic food inventory. 

What did you do to me Target?  I can't even find the baby food section anymore.  As my child in a wheelchair stares at me like he's also landed on Mars.  Nothing makes sense.  The layout is disjointed, the isles go sideways and horizontally, and before you know it you're staring at kitchen spatulas when all you wanted to do is just find paper towel.  And it's not all that wheelchair friendly.  You can easily get stuck on an isle with a grumpy person staring you down so you know your only alternative is to throw that wheelchair in reverse and attempt to find yet another small isle to see if you can get down.

Why Target?  Just why? 

This totally took your ranking of one of my top stores down to at least 15.  I don't have the time to spend three hours touring your store for the 5 things I simply need on my list before I both have to feed my child and sprint to his therapy.  I miss the store I once knew.  I miss the feeling of it being simple and easy, and now it's complicated and hard.  And I have enough hard in my life everyday Target.  From the moment I get up it's hard.  Now you have to make my retail experience hard too. 

While I pout I will at least give you credit that you didn't eliminate Starbucks and that that my internal GPS can at least still scout that out, because right now that feels like the only benefit to even walking into your store.

Signed one, sad, forlorn and lost special needs parent shopper.

Love,



Noah's Miracle by Stacy Warden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.