Going to Target at Night

I was at Target last night, wondering the endless isles, meandering the abandoned clothing departments...surfing the waves of red when I came to the realization that going to Target late at night is, well rather eerie. Just think of it: hardly any customers in the store, only the occasional employee with a cart stocking shelves, and the automatic lights in the freezers that flicker on as you pass, beckoning you forth whispering, "Come to us, come. No one will see you get that Ben and Jerry's...or see us grab you and disappear into the night..." See? It's really the automatic lights that always get me. Not that I frequent the ice cream isles at Target often but I can occasionally be known to end up there when I walk and ponder simultaneously. Like last night when I actually was buying ice cream to self medicate a very sore throat.

I was walking past the eggs and the yogurt and then past the break and bake cookies and up to the ice cream isle. All the frosted doors were slate gray and darkened. Taking a step forward lights on both sides of me suddenly flickered on displaying their goodies for unsuspecting sweet tooths. Ignoring this, I took a few more steps and found the cold isle filling with light on either side, flickering on one frosted freezer door at a time down the long corridor of treats until the very last two doors sketchily lit up. I could almost hear the sound of a metal CLANG each time a pair of doors lit up. Weeeell, it wasn't exactly like that per say. The doors didn't extend that tremendously far down I suppose, but this happened to at least a couple doors in front of me, the lights are actually motion activated so as I walk down the isle in a couple sentences they will ominously flicker on as aforementioned.

I didn't see anything I wanted in the first freezer case and they were all organic name brands so way out of my ice cream budget anyway. I started down a few more feet to check out what the next case held. Lights blinked on again, offering me the frozen treats displayed in a dirty highlighter sort of light. Nothing I wanted here either, I moved on. Blink, blink, more light and more ice creams. This time closer to something I would buy but still about a dollar too much. Ah ha, through the glass of the case I was looking into I saw next to it a reasonably priced and appealing flavoured carton of Light French Silk ice cream. But the freezer wasn't yet lit. Could I reach through the adjacent freezer and try to wriggle a carton out from there or would I have to advance forward and activate another set of stalker lights for my prize? Opening the door in front of me I reached around the last row of Kemps towards the Market Pantry Light French Silk, it was so close I could feel the coldness rippling off the lid. Leaning into the case the tips of my fingers brushed the freezer burned edges of the cardboard carton but not able to grasp it. Straining to get a grip on the lid a mechanical groan sounded from deep within the case. I jumped back out into the isle, startled. Perhaps it was safer just to activate the lights after all. It's better to be outside the freezer and be creeped out than inside the freezer and kidnapped by mutant ice cream.

Shutting the door of the first case I shoved my hands into my coat pockets for a mini warming session, they had to be ready and alert for what was going to happen next. It would be a lightning fast mission with great rewards but also with great risks.

As soon as I could feel my whole hand again I bent my knees and sprang the last two feet into the line of the motion detectors with triple axel like power. In an instant the lights were on and I had the door open, hand posed to grab the first Light French Silk I saw. But wait, what's this? The first carton's safety seal had been broken. NO! this wasn't in the plan! My mind raced as I devised a devious plan: use my free hand to side swipe the possibly contaminated ice cream and grab the second carton behind it. If there's one thing I have learned in life it is to not grab the first of anything 'cause how many people's grimy little hands have touched it? No, instead go for the one behind it. My hip now held open the freezer door as my free hand swung around from left field hitting the side of the frame on its way into battle. In a second the first carton was cleared and the second carton was within an inch of my frozen hand. Contact was made. Success! I sprang backwards back into the eerie light letting the freezer door slam shut and suction itself completely closed. For a second all my brain could do was focus of how excited I was to have accomplished such a risky feat, but then I thought for another couple seconds and realized that somewhere in that act of bravery three Target employees had come over to the frozen treats isle to stock items and, by the looks on their faces, had mostly likely seen the whole thing. Awkward. But I guess that's the price you pay. I looked down at my carton of ice cream, "My precious!" I thought, and walked down the rest of the ice cream isle letting the lights flicker on as I passed.

Author's note: Some facts have been changed for dramatic detail.

Thanks for reading!

Back "Home"

Thank you to all who've been reading this blog while I was away, it's been really fun to read your comments! I hope you all continue to read it even though I'm officially back home in the States. For some reason or other I was locked out of my blog for about a month while I was abroad so I need to do some catch up reports in the next few weeks. Here's a trailer of what's to come: France and the gorgeous palace of Versailles, Ireland and Belfast home stays, and random things that I think about. Possibly even some more travel writing like I did for Lindisfarne! I will also be adding pictures to my previous couple blogs due to poor internet connections when I posted them last. So, thanks again for reading and hope to see your comments in the future!

Second Time in London

Just a small note to those who read this blog: I come home in less than a week! Sad day, I’ll miss England L. About a month ago our second professor Mark Bruce and his wife, Julianne and daughter Rhiannon came over. Our first professor Dan Ritchie and his wife Judie left us before I left for Italy and returned to the States a week later. The transition between teaching styles and pace of the trip changed a lot when Mark came over. Not in a bad way, just different. Mark’s style of teaching is much more laid back than Ritchie’s so it took a few days to get used to the more frequent and more discussion-based classes. And since Mark and Julianne’s daughter Rhiannon, who is five years old, is along with us for this later part of England Term it took a couple days to get used to having a lil’ kid with us-though she is always a pleasure.

After coming back from free travel (at 2 am on the very, very last day possible) we all assembled again in London at the Celtic Hotel, our favorite “home base”. We were there for a week having class and recovering from our ten days of living completely on our own. We may or may not have done a little shopping too…

We went to the British Library to see a performance of the first third of Beowulf done by this guy who sat up on a stage with coloured backlights and a harp of sorts. He sang slash spoke the poem and played little interludes or background music along with the text. It was a really neat experience but I think I might have gotten more out it if I had read the poem previous to the trip or in high school or something. …Or if it hadn’t been performed at night in a dark, warm room with light harp-like melodies being played, if you catch my drift. The library itself is very larger and has a ton of reference materials for use. The majority of us however, went to the gift shop to look for literary souvenirs.

The next place we stayed was a retreat center in Turnbridge Wells called Salamon’s. It is a center that belongs to a Christian university somewhere in England. The main building was amazing, all stone and old looking, though it probably was not older than perhaps a hundred years-if that. There were separate dorm-like rooms a few hundred feet from the main building and huge gardens slash back yard. There was a good few acres stretching out behind the mansion style house. The yard sloped down the further away from the house it lay creating a step-like look in the grass. Off to the side of the yard was a forested area. We used this treed area for our ropes course.

One of our two main activities at this location was an intense ropes course. If you don’t know what that is, it is a team building workshop involving heights, ropes, harnesses, and screaming encouragingly by the people you’re with. There were these two guys who led the activity. We divided up into two groups and grabbed white, hard helmets and an awkwardly fitting harness and chose our starting activity. My group started with an activity that involved climbing a very high wooden pole and standing on a little platform like circus animals, then leaning backwards…with two other people up there with you at the same time. I would say that it was between 25 and 30 feet in the air but I’m a bad estimator. We all had our harnesses on and were attached to a line to hold us up while we were climbing up the pole. Others down on the ground attended to the slack of the rope and kept it taut and secure. I made it up to the top with one other person. But when we clasped hands to lean back we were unbalanced weight-wise so after a few seconds we fell off and swung in the air for a bit before making a graceful, fairy-like landing.

Our next activity was to climb up an even higher pole and free jump at a trapeze, hopefully making it. This one was harder for me and I lost energy at the top and couldn’t make it. I wasn’t really scared, I just didn’t have any strength left, which I was sad about ‘cause I really wanted to make the jump.

Our next big activity at Salamon’s was Halloween! Which, I will be posting a separate blog for because it was so awesome.