A Review: Seeing an Ex at Target

Of all the Targets in the Greater Chicago Area…

I’m not a regular at my local Target, and this is by design.

Entering the place is not generally a solid financial move. No knock on their pricing by any means, as it is competitive, which is actually part of the problem.

I stroll in for something simple as a coffee mug and then I black out and go on Supermarket Sweeps autopilot, coming to 30 minutes later with a cart full of a bunch of items I certainly don’t need to add to the cluttered shelves, drawers and living space of my small apartment.

Things can get really out of control if you have no self-control, which I do not.

I suppose there are worse results to going down the rabbit hole than coming back out with some Pokemon cards even though you haven’t messed with those since like sixth grade, thought it’s still not ideal if you want to be semi-frugal.

But sometimes you wake up on a Saturday morning and you for some reason decide it’s high time you add a rapid egg cooker to your kitchen arsenal, even though, economically speaking, it is absolutely the wrong time to get heavy into egg eating.

I could easily get this innovative contraption same-day delivery from Amazon, but I’ve been trying to get out more and spend less on delivery items. (I’m a week off Uber Eats and the shakes have yet to subside.) Suck it, Bezos. I’m gonna stick it to you, really take a stand — by going to Target, the true underdog.

So I don my finest frock (never know you who might see at The Red Bullseye and I make a big deal out of going anywhere on the weekends) and cross the river to Streeterville where I enter not my favorite Target but the one within most reasonable walking distance.

I eye the handled baskets then grab a cart because I know exactly how this is gonna go and I’m trying to lie to myself less. Then I get after it, heading straight to where I assume a rapid egg cooker might be and doing my best to ignore my grabby impulses along the way.

This does not work out well. The blackout I knew I was cruising for hits full force and when I regain control of my faculties the cart is now, as if by magic, stacked with a very odd conglomeration of knick-knacks.

Should also note that I am eating freely from the package of Skittles I snagged in the candy aisle.

And I’m only about halfway to the estimated rapid egg cooker location. Got miles to go before I hit the self-checkout.

I detour into the bedding aisle when I am reminded I should maybe spring for some new pillows and sheets. This comes as an unwelcome flashback to an evening my ex gently complained about the quality of said pillows. The sheets were an add-on because I burnt a couple sets in effigy that she once used to lie upon (and occasionally squirt upon *high-fives self then wonders for the thousandth time if squirting is really just urine*) when sleeping with me in my bed.

As if this thought has somehow conjured her, I notice a woman with her familiar athleisure-clad figure. It’s not immediately apparent that it’s her, as many share a similar build and penchant for wearing workout or yoga pants wherever they go (I’m not sure I ever felt true joy until yoga pants became such a big thing), and I’ve grown almost used to the brief bout of panic I feel in situations like this where I think I might see her, as unlikely as it is, but then discover to my great relief that it’s another woman who takes obsessive care of her body.

I chance a second glance and am happy to discover it is not her. I remember how to breathe again, turn into the aisle, gander at some linens. I’m contemplating thread counts and also wondering if I’ve reached a point in life where I should be shopping for my sheets somewhere a little more high scale than Target when I hear my ex in the near distance and freeze She says something I do not register and a male timbre responds.

I can accurately identify her voice among a thousand much quicker than I could pick her butt out of a lineup, though I would still after all these months invite the challenge.

The back of my neck and shoulder blades prickle like they’re being stabbed with needles and I feel extremely hot, like I might start sweating.

What is she doing here? Of all the Targets in all of Greater Chicago, she walks into the one I go to so I don’t have to pay for an Uber to schlep my wares back to my compound. It’s unlikely she’d show her face in this place, given that she lives way uptown. Or lived. It dawns on me that I don’t really know where she lives now. Or why. Why is anyone anywhere?

This is going to seem like something someone would make up in this scenario, but after throwing the pack of sheets I’ve been holding back onto the shelf in the wrong place I pinch myself hard on the forearm because I honestly consider for a moment that I might be in the middle of a horrifying dream.

All it does is hurt. I am fully awake. I am living the night terror.

I’ve gotta get the fuck outta here.

It’s either immediate flight or risking actually running into her and talking (which I am sure she does not want to do, never wants to see my face again) or us both clocking each other and choosing to act like we had not. I’m unsure which would be worse. And I do not want to find out.

I assume most people think at one time or another about what it would be like to run into this ex or that ex — and how it might play out. (I acknowledge most probably don’t think about it as much as I do.) But that’s a zero-sum game you’re only really playing with yourself. If it does ever happen, there is a nearly 100 percent chance that it will not go exactly how you thought it would in your little Mind Narratives. Might go better. Might go worse. Somewhere in between. But it won’t be the exact experience you’ve envisioned. The only way to really know is to go through it and see what happens if the situation ever arises. Fuck around and find out, if that’s the adventure you choose.

Alternatively, you can go with avoidance — to keep your imaginative narrative intact and pretend that’s how it would have went, forever and ever, or at least until you forget about her. The two may not be mutually exclusive.

Something of a coward, I go with the latter option.

So I register the Code Red and go full-on Operation Commodore with a quickness. I need to catch a breeze ASAP.

Relying on my hearing is a gamble — my inner thoughts operate at a high decibel level and frequency and have the voice of Zack de la Rocha, and this is probably psychosomatic but I can’t help but think they might be hurting my actual hearing at this point — but it’s a wager I’m gonna have to make.

Pretty sure she’s coming south down the western back aisle toward the bedding section. I have to make it east to the main aisle then north to the checkout section where I can either risk she and her boyfriend queueing up behind me while I’m waiting to ring up my haul, or leave it in the cart in the middle of everything and hoof it all the way back home.

Either way I’m not making it home with a rapid egg cooker.

This is unacceptable. She may have won the breakup by a long shot (insofar as she moved on immediately), but I shan’t stand for her getting in the way of me and a half-dozen perfectly cooked eggs. Every day comes with its own metaphorical Mt. Everest.

Which brings me to a third option:

Wait them out. From a distance. Find a spot in the store they’re unlikely to hit up and hunker down until a reasonable amount of time has passed for them to get outta there. Can’t hit up the in-store Starbucks because I know her well enough to know that’s almost definitely part of her Target route. I figure it’s unlikely they’ll encounter me in the book section. Not because she doesn’t read, but because who goes to Target to shop for books these days?

But this is beyond the pale. I’m an adult, mostly, and while I am admittedly weak about many things I can’t just lurk around a department store waiting for someone else to leave. I don’t have much pride, but Jesus.

I make my move and see no one familiar then book it to the “As Seen on TV” section.

They are out of rapid egg cookers.

All this for nothing. My somewhat strange dream to swiftly and conveniently prepare some poached eggs has been crushed. For now, anyway. Sometimes it goes that way.

It’s a dick move to leave a semi-full cart of random shit for an employee to restock, but I’ve done worse things in an attempt to escape moments of panic. I make my peace with it and head out.

Sometimes when you leave it’s best to leave everything behind.

Halfway home I put my hand in my pocket and realize I stole the Skittles.

Seeing an ex at Target: 0.5 STARS (Half a star because I got free candy.)