Target was established in, well many many years ago. The answer would be quicker to find than typing this sentence, but I am still not going to look it up. It was founded right here in my state, Minnesota. Growing up the choices for budget stores that sold it all were limited to K-Mart and Target. And I recall our family going to both places. The majority of the time we were at Target. This was because they sold popcorn. My mom had a thing for those long skinny bags of popcorn.

I just moved and I had to find the nearest Target. In my search I was directed to THE Target. The nearest location is the First Target Ever. In recent years I feel that Target has moved up a whole lot of notches above K-Mart and Wal-Mart. Target seems like the store who you want at your lunch table while K-Mart is the kid you use to know and like, then he started talking to himself and wearing cowboy boots with jean shorts to school.
In my most recent visit to THE target you may think I imagined it but I sensed a sort of camaraderie between me and the other shoppers. As though our heads were held higher than those in other stores. We knew we were in the greatest retail store and in the first one of it’s kind. Call me crazy, but you weren’t there.

Here are the 7 greatest things about the greatest retail chain in the world.

7. Early Sales of Trashy Magazines
Stay with me here, our definitions of trashy are probably very different. I am a sucker for US Weekly and People, in that order. Martha Stewart is also high on the list. Stores typically bring out the current week’s magazines between Friday and Tuesday. Not Target. They put them out Thursday. Which means that one day sooner I get to know who dressed the worst that week, who is getting divorced from their ex-best friend’s baby daddy, and how I can make salt and pepper shakers out of a gourd one day earlier than Wal-Mart shoppers.

6. Jone’s Holiday Soda’s
It started with a single flavor of Turkey with gravy.

Later they managed to make a six-pack dedicated to the whole holiday feast in soda form. Now Jones is getting us excited for other special occasions as well. I think when they join with Just Born and make some Easter Peep’s Soda we should make Jone’s their own special holiday for their reign in awesomeness.

5. The Girls Department
HUH?! Well if you are female and darn scrawny like I am you would be stoked for finding skirts on the sales rack for $3.74 as well. Also, you can go there and get the same hair stuff and jewelry items (I need my plastic beads) for about half the price as the mature section.

4. Dollar Bins
I have a five year old. He is loud. I bribe him at times to get him to lower his volume. One easy way to do this is to point to those colorful bins and say, “If you are good the whole time we are shopping we will get you whatever you want out of that whole section!” It won’t be long until he realizes mom is putting a scam on him. Until then, he is building his collection of seasonally themed plastic crap quite nicely.

3. Starbucks
I use to be a barista. I scorned Starbucks, I even owned my own shop for a few years. But my deepest secret is that after a money blowing fest at Target I’ll always stop at the Starbucks near the door and buy something. My obsessions have gone in phases. From pumpkin spice lattes to Caramel Apple Cider to Green tea Frappaccinos. I don’t have to lie about it any more. When in Target, I go to Starbucks. And when I get home with my beverage of choice and celebrity rag in hand, I am at peace like no other time during my day. Pure zen.

2. Target Sunday Ads
I don’t always “do” the Sunday paper. But growing up we did. Sundays now when we head over to my family’s for after church dinner there’s always a newspaper strewn on the living room furniture. Whoever grabs the paper first has dibs on the Target ad. By the time that person is done leafing through it, the rest of the droolers have decided in which order we are going to pass around the ad. There’s no other ad in the paper that receives this treatment. None even come close.

1. Holidays
Target celebrates holidays the way retail establishments are meant to celebrate holidays. People are supposed to celebrate whatever they celebrate within their hearts and family. Target, you have my permission to go daisy crazy whenever you feel like it for the upcoming seasons. I don’t know how it is everywhere. It seems a good chunk of the back corner of Targets around here are solely dedicated to whatever celebration is approaching. Right now, they are phasing out the summer barbecue and outdoor things to make way for Back to School, or as the hip kids say, Back 2 Cool.
I really do love going in there come mid September when I just cannot stand one more humid day with tornado sirens to see the fall decor and Halloween costumes. Then, you know it’s coming. It being the three month long relationship Target and I share every year in preparations for the day the old man poofs through the wall of my chimney free apartment. You don’t ever need to buy anything. Just to go and smells the smells and stick your head up to the Christmas trees and squint so that the lights look as they did on the Family Affair TV show intro.

Ah, jeez. I am getting too happy about the whole thing already. I love holidays, especially those that take place in cold weather. And I love target.