Buying Personal Feminine Hygiene Products at Target

You can't go into a Target and just buy tampons. Or, at least, I can't. I'm still twelve that way. The bill came to $50.31 for precisely no other reason than I'm too afraid to place tampons on the small conveyor belt that will amble by the surly twenty year old who should be in college but isn't, he's taking a year off to "find himself", and decides to spend his days snarling at women....with tampons. Not that I go down his check-out isle anyway. I really wouldn't--if I had tampons. Which I do.

So, I have other checker choices. The elderly Indian fella (from India--with the accent to prove it) who is congenial and slow moving and rather absent-minded and I just don't want him looking at you know; he's a no go. And there is the perky lady from the Bronx, ya know wad ah mean? She's fast and efficient and always wants me to sign up for their credit card because I would save $20 today! I like her and aim for her when she's there. Today she's not there. The non-descript, middle aged white lady today. No one likes being described as non-descript do they? But truly, I don't remember her. Wait a minute, she might have been black.

So what did my $5o bucks get me? A little of this. A little of that. A Martha Stewart Magazine with Martha, herself, gracing the cover again. Is this a new development? She's kind of set back in the picture of her pink guest house, wearing a pink cardigan, smiling and looking like she's trying not to look to sure. Humble. Martha doesn't do humble. She's not exactly proud, either. She's just determined and works hard and earns her place at the front of the picture. Yeah, yeah, she's a criminal. Save it. That whole nonsense that got her thrown in the clink for 18 hard months, for what , exactly? Having the nerve to be a hard-working, demanding woman. My sister said, "No one should yell at people like that."

"How do you know she yelled at people?"

"I read it and I heard." She's a big exec so I believe her.

"Well, I don't care if she yelled at people. Why do women have to be nice and men can be the biggest axxholes and they're considered leaders."

"She should be nice."

Yes, she should, but what's nice? Nice is market share and profitability. Nice is perfection when you're selling perfection. That's nice. I know what she means, though. Anyway, I cut Martha slack. A doctor who took care of my son when he weighed roughly 750 grams (about three sticks of butter) yelled at the third year resident for miscalculating a medication. He was decidedly not nice. I was glad he wasn't nice. I was glad he was good. Nice is overrated.

The magazine didn't cost forty dollars. (Two tampon boxes for $10! A bargain. Those personal hygiene companies really have you over the barrel don't they? Forty pieces of wound tight cotten is five bucks? What a rip! I told my husband that they use them to plug up bleeding wounds in the war. He rolled his eyes. What? They really do.) Anyway, I got my daughter a cotton play dress (saved four dollars). A card for a loved one. Didn't say what I wanted it to, but after looking for half and hour and Little Toot started making cat calls to the female babies (I'm not making this up), I decided to move on.

Oh, I almost forgot. How could I forget? The best part: two bags of Raspberry Milano cookies by Pepperidge Farm. They don't sell them at H.E.B., my new favorite shopping spot, once Kroger stopped impressing. Milanos are a special treat. They are in the freezer beckoning me right now--evil like those who made them. A Pepperidge Farm insider confided that the food engineers know that a woman can't just eat one of those cookies so they make the package bingeable on purpose. And I'm not making that up either.

It seems like I got more than that for fifty dollars, but I don't think so and that's just it about Target. Today was a good day. I escaped with fifty dollars more than usual. Most of the time the tally is $101.87. Always over $100, just over. The cart can be overflowing or half full, but I always seem to leave there passing that psychological, err financial, threshold.

Anyway, I have my tampons now. I hid them with the merchandise. The checker didn't even notice.