The Walmartization of Target

A nearly senile woman of at least threescore and ten greets me with a toothless smile and sad eyes. The displays of merchandise are in shambles; goods are strewn haphazardly on dirty shelves, tumbling onto the floor; passageways are crowded with heavy, slow-moving mammals. As I venture deeper, I find myself surrounded by sour-smelling indigents dressed in slothful rags and  undisciplined children scurrying around, while at least a dozen different languages are clucking in my ears all at once. All the while, beady eyes stare at me menacingly, filling me with a constant fear that I might be pickpocketed, assaulted, robbed, or whisked away into some sort of criminal underworld or white slave trade, my loved ones never to hear from me again.

This harrowing description is not of a visit to a Moroccan bazaar, or even to a faraway planet. This is how I feel every time I set foot in a Wal-Mart.

Preppy folk of good breeding, such as myself, have a great appreciation for the finer things in life, i.e. well-made, long-lasting garments, antique furniture, fine silverware, Triscuits, and relaxing trips and getaways. The finer things do cost money, but we can afford them by squeezing our dollars on groceries and household necessities at low-price retailers. Most of these establishments have always attracted a lower-class clientele, whose disheveled appearance and inability to converse in proper English, or any English at all, make bargain shopping a distressing, sometimes even frightening experience for our sort.

Preppies know that many things don't have to cost a lot to do what they need them to do, and know where to find them at a more attractive price. Things like utilitarian glassware, kitchen utensils, placemats, party decorations, giftwrap, and storage containers can be found for cheap at discount stores such as Marshall's, T.J. Maxx, Ross, and even dollar stores. Low prices can be found on attractive clothing as well at many of these discounters (except dollar stores). Still, in order to get their bargains, preppies must conquer their fears of the lower classes and make their way through the writhing masses of mouth-breathers to claim their treasures. Sometimes, one just can't take the adrenaline rush, and just wants to get something at a fair price without offending his delicate sensibilities with the sights, sounds, and smells of trashy people. There was a time, not very long ago at all — not even two years ago — when there was a retailer where we could have our cake and eat it too. It was called Target.

Target offered kitchen wares, electronics, cleaning supplies, health, beauty, and hygiene products, and school and office supplies at prices significantly lower than supermarkets, drugstores, and department stores. Their prices were typically ever so slightly higher than their chief competitor, Wal-Mart, but they offered one very valuable feature that Wal-Mart did not: a sleaze-free shopping experience. The difference at the register added up to pocket change, well worth the privilege of shopping in a clean, quiet, orderly store patronized chiefly by well-bred customers. Target was something of a well-kept secret among tasteful folk for a very long time, and I enjoyed it. The rare expeditions I would make to Wal-Mart felt just like this entry's opening narrative. A subsequent visit to Target was like a gasp of fresh air by comparison, where anxieties melted away at the sight of shoppers to manor born and manners bred.

The walls separating the aristocrats from the unwashed masses began to crumble when Target introduced large grocery sections in its stores. Though offering a smaller selection of brands and varieties than supermarkets, their prices were very competitive, even with Wal-Mart stores, which had already had grocery departments for many years. With cheap groceries as well as cheap household goods and affordable, albeit shoddily made, clothing, Target suddenly became very attractive to Wal-Mart's clientele, and the vermin crept in, little by little, until a full-fledged infestation was irreversibly in place.

Just yesterday I stopped by Target on my way home from the cubicle for some moisturizer, face scrub, and a few groceries. My eyes were soiled at the sight of obese negresses wearing all-too-revealing rompers, a blubbery mother sporting a mullet with her pudgy urchins swinging from the shopping cart, wiry goons with cornrows in their hair and wifebeaters on their slouching backs, and an obese interracial couple to whom I was hesitant to get too close lest I slip in the amniotic fluid that was sure to erupt at any moment from the female's super-sized womb, though in retrospect, her oversized sweatpants probably would have absorbed most of it. Then I caught sight of a sure sign of Target's decline into disrepute: the Shaun White collection. It seems Target has partnered with skateboarder Shaun White to sell garish "skater" clothing inspired by urban street urchins to impressionable preteen boys during that delicate phase of development in which they are striving to develop a sense of identity. The identity of a directionless street-rat loitering in a public park is among the last I would want any son of mine to assume. The Walmartization of Target is happening now, reader, and cannot be stopped. Fellow preppies will soon face a choice of whether to brave the fray and benefit from their low prices on sunscreen and paper towels, freeing up funds for 1.5-liter bottles of Old Crow (which also must be purchased alongside the lowest of society, thanks to the state government's statutorily sanctioned monopoly on liquor sales), or pay premium prices at smaller stores in order to avoid the Target-Mart ordeal.

Those who choose the easy way out have many options, which I had long counted out but may soon reexamine. The inter-web is the most obvious solution, for it offers practically everything a gentle-man could want without the need to enter a store, but for a mostly trash-free shopping experience, they have the outdoor shopping complex. Outdoor shopping complexes were created to deter loitering gangs of surly teenagers by removing climate control from the equation and of course prohibiting skateboarding, and also to turn off the grubby riffraff who opt to stretch their greasy dollars elsewhere by filling their spaces with higher-priced merchants in architecturally pleasing buildings among well-manicured grounds with plenty of sunlight and pruned shade trees, all carefully laid out according to years of urban planning research to make shoppers feel at ease. Ideally, the relatively lower-priced stores, like Old Navy and Rite-Aid, are close to the boundaries of the complex, keeping less savory folk from wandering too far into the areas where their social betters are shopping. The whole complex is dotted with eateries offering such cuisine as sushi, baked goods, gyros, sandwiches, and gourmet dishes, all in an effort to keep away the chicken-n-waffles crowd.

How grand would it be to construct a private, members-only shopping center, admission to which was governed by a membership committee? The pipe dream is for a shopping center to be run like a country club, where only members and guests can come to shop, and everyone is subject to a dress code. Membership would be free of charge, and the shopping club would be run for profit like any other shopping center, but the membership committee would be elected by members. Also, a process would be available to petition rescission of membership if a member's conduct or appearance became problematic for a large enough majority of other members. It will never happen because retailers won't want to set up shop where a limited number of consumers can come, but still, a gentle-man can dream. For the time being, I'll have to reevaluate just how much the dollars I save at Target are really worth.