Not so Super.

I hate Super Target. And quite possibly Pledge, though that might be misplaced hatred. For all I know, that's Super Target's fault, too.

It wasn't hard for me to fall in love with Target. Growing up I had much more experience with Walmart — Target didn't arrive in Joliet until I was in high school, and even then it was kind of a hike from where we lived. (Now you can turn either way out of my parents' subdivision and hit one within 5 minutes.) Also, we spent a LOT of time at Walmart in college. It was the closest superstore to Taylor (that crappy Kmart in Gas City doesn't count), and provided countless hours of entertainment (I have taken many pictures in Walmart...including one of my friend Bri in a canoe, one of my friend Ali smelling a wall of fake flowers, and one of me sitting on a race car made out of Bud Light boxes. Classy). But when I moved to Minnesota there wasn't a Walmart within the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. So, off to Target I went.

And oh, I loved it.

It didn't take long for me to become a full-fledged member of the Target fan club. Why would it? Target is amazing. It's clean and pretty and trendy and has cheap clothes. One of my favorite things to do after work (before I had to get home every night to my dog) was wander aimlessly around Target, buying a random assortment of things I didn't need. Cute shirts, cute shoes, cute home stuff...cute, cute, cute.

And then Super Target came to town. Both of the primary Targets in my life — one across the street from my office, one by my home — went from being boring old regular Targets to shiny new SUPER Targets. I was ecstatic. Cute shirts, shoes and home stuff PLUS a full range of groceries? No way!

No way was right.

Believe me, I feel I am being kind when I say this: Super Target SUCKS. I can't stand it. It's ridiculously crowded. People let their kids run wild. I can't find anything. They have a crappy produce selection. And they are always out of products I need, or they don't carry them at all. Every single time I have attempted to grocery shop at Super Target, I've had to stop at Rainbow on my way home to pick up something they didn't have. And it's usually for something stupid. For example, once I went there to pick up saltine crackers. They didn't have ANY. The entire shelf of saltines was empty. No brand name, no store brand. Nothing. Can it get more basic than saltines? I've found that to be the case with things like cheddar cheese and yogurt, too. And forget about it if you're looking for any type of specialty ingredients for a recipe. (And by "specialty" I mean things like capers. Not exactly fancy fare.)

I believe the goal in creating Super Target was ultimate convenience for the customer. But there is nothing convenient about having to stop at another grocery store for saltines.

This leads me to my complaint about Pledge. Which is somewhat related, seeing as I still shop at Target for household products (and cute shirts, shoes and home stuff), if not groceries.

Pledge keeps introducing products, and then pulling them off the shelf before I am able to use the entire product and replace it. It's driving me crazy. Last fall I bought a package of Pledge Stainless Steel wipes for my kitchen appliances. I have tried a number of stainless cleaning products, and those were by far my favorite. Quick, easy, cleaned up perfectly. Love them (love the whole wipes movement in general...so much better than hauling around a bottle of 409 and a roll of paper towels). Went back to Target to buy them again when I ran out...and they didn't have them. Assuming this was just another crappy Target is out of something situation, I tried another Target. No luck. Pledge doesn't make them anymore. (So no, this cannot be blamed on Target.) So I ended up buying some other stainless wipes that I hate, but whatever.

And then last weekend I used up my last Pledge "Clean and Dust" wipe, which I also found to be kind of fabulous. Went to Target to get more...and they didn't have any. This time I didn't even attempt to find them at another Target, I just assumed Pledge had discontinued them. So instead I purchased the new Pledge "Multi-Surface" wipes. This time I bought two packs, just in case they decided to discontinued those as well.

However, upon visiting the Pledge website, I discovered that the Clean and Dust wipes are still available. So this can be entirely blamed on Super Target being out of yet another product I need. (I knew there would be a connection!)

And now that I've gotten all this written down, I'm not sure I have a point. So I'll wrap things up with a quick summary:

Super Target sucks, Pledge kind of sucks, I really miss those stainless wipes, and I am ranting about cleaning products so I maybe need to find a hobby.