And you will ask yourself: have I always been in this Target? Was I born here? Did I ever know a life outside of it? That’s usually how it feels to find yourself, for one reason or another, ensnared inside of one. That, and you were coerced by the promise of low, low prices and a wide, wide selection. Whatever you could possibly be looking for…within reason. And within the limitations of completely generic taste. Which, of course, extends to clothing items. That was what Juliana had initially decided to go in there for. And it wasn’t even for “clothes,” but rather, a bathing suit. She had been invited, last minute (unfortunately), to a pool party. The only one of its kind she had been privy to for the entire summer. What’s more, since summer was coming to an end, she found herself averse to declining such a rare invitation. Like many, she still believed it wasn’t “really” summer unless you took a dip at some point. You know, apart from a mood dip (better known to many, by now, as “summertime sadness”). 

So, though she knew it was likely to be a mistake to enter the Target on the corner of Santa Monica and La Brea, she did it. She was aware that she could have gone to a less overwhelming one (not to mention one with less cumbersome parking options), but it was the closest location to her apartment at the Hollywood Gardens on Lemon Grove Avenue. A street name, Juliana was proud to say, that smacked of exactly the type of road an aspiring Hollywood actress would live on when she came out to California. The type of road, in short, that played to all the cliches about Los Angeles itself. So did the apartment complex. Which was not only a rare Lynchian-esque holdout amid a sea of newer luxury buildings and condos, but also a mere ten-minute drive (minus the requisite pauses in traffic) from Target. Those who were naive might have posited that Juliana could simply “walk” there. Those people were unaware that one does not “walk” in L.A. just because something “seems” close. The lengthy boulevards and avenues are hardly for the casual or faint-hearted ambler. Instead, they appear to have been designed for those who wish to invoke an encounter with Death while walking. 

But anyhow, that wasn’t the point. The point was, Juliana was braving the black hole of the Santa Monica and La Brea Target. She was going to look for a bathing suit, that was it. She repeated this like a mantra to herself over and over as she circled the parking garage in search of a spot, any spot, for her ancient silver Honda Accord to “rest.” After about twenty minutes of this, someone finally decided to leave the belly of the beast and allow Juliana a turn inside the void. One she hadn’t dared enter since the last time she swore off ever going to Target, let alone the Santa Monica and La Brea Target. That was about a year ago now, and it had been the location in Burbank, which was more manageable in many regards.

Nonetheless, she had found herself captured, somehow trapped inside for hours by the invisible presence called her buyer’s lust. Yet, in the end, it was like a dog chasing its own tail: never amounting to anything. For all she could do was wander mindlessly through the same aisles, zombie-like, over and over again. Never quite remembering what she had come back for, what had attracted her in the first place. Maybe because it all initially seemed alluring until she took a second glance, realizing in the end how banal every product was. How even the ones that were trying their hardest to be “special” were but poor imitations of individuality. From band t-shirts espousing the likes of the Rolling Stones and Nirvana to bathing suit bikinis in striped or polka dotted patterns, there was an endless supply of “nothings” posing as “somethings.” That was the way of the American product pool in general and the way of the Target product pool in particular. 

Juliana had vowed that she would not make the same mistake of believing otherwise again. Would not be duped into thinking she saw something worthwhile apart from the object of her mission: a garden-variety, “in a pinch” bathing suit. But, like the instant hypnosis of a man entering a strip club while claiming he was only “looking,” unknown amounts of time would suddenly elapse and, eventually, money would have to change hands (or body parts anyway). Except that was the difference between Target and the strip club: no one strong-armed (/pussied) you into buying anything, so you could end up “just looking” for hours, effectively roaming the premises with no real sense of time or reality. After all, what was Target but one of the ultimate liminal spaces? A non-place transitioning you from little better than “interior consumer” to “exterior consumer.”

So it was that Juliana was shocked to find that, although she had arrived at the store around approximately 1:09 p.m. (after parking), an announcement over the PA system warned shoppers that the store would be closing in thirty minutes and to please head over to the cash register to make your purchases at least fifteen minutes prior to the store’s lockup (the implication actually being: you don’t have to go home, but you might end up staying here if you don’t leave). That would have meant it was 9:30 p.m. How had Juliana let this happen once again? Allowed herself to fall so blindly into the trap? It was then that she finally looked over at some of her fellow shoppers and noticed they were in a similar state. Appearing as though they had just come out of a trance, or a long, magic spell-induced sleep (like Sleeping Beauty herself—hey is that a Sleepy Beauty tee over there?).

Clearing her throat as she struggled to remember how to speak, she finally found the words to ask a fellow customer, “How long have you been in here?” The customer, a blonde-haired woman who had that L.A. quality of being either twenty or forty, slowly turned her head, almost as though it were attached to a screw and someone was slowly turning “the mechanism” for her. She smiled a Stepford smile and croaked, “I have always lived in this Target… And so have you…Juliana.” The way she not only knew Juliana’s name, but also hissed it was enough to shake her fully from the consumerist reverie she had been locked inside of for the past eight-ish hours.

She made a beeline toward the exit, but, suddenly, all the other shoppers took note of her attempt to leave, closing in on her to try preventing her escape. How had she missed the fact that they were all zombies (or something like it) before? Were humans that interchangeable with pod people? An internal voice snapped at her, “In L.A. they are.” It was the voice that was always talking shit about L.A., even back when her dealings with it were but a dream to move there. It was the voice that planted the seeds of doubt about bothering to go to this pool party in the first place. Because she would never have any “real” friends in L.A., no matter what she did. What amount of effort she put in to feign “blending.” She would always be the “other” to the types of people she was trying to consort with: Californians. Not that many of them weren’t “transplants” themselves, it was just that the implication of what it meant to “be Californian” (mainly, being flighty and detached) seemed to suit them better than it did Juliana. 

The voice was overpowering now. And it told her to run as far and as fast as she could out of that Target, straight through the front exit…rather than trying to deal with the whole parking garage mess. The silver Honda was due to be retired anyway, and so, for once, she didn’t fight the voice, heeding its advice to get out while she still could. Before she became one of those shoppers who had always been living in the Target. Maybe they were even born there. 

Once outside, she did the thing she used to balk at others for doing: walked. Right back to the Hollywood Gardens. What was a ten-minute drive took forty-five minutes on foot, and it was forty-five minutes that allowed her the clarity to understand that she would not attend that pool party. And yes, the voice assured her that no one would notice her absence anyway.