We are sitting in the kitchen of our city "condo"- well, it's not really ours and it's not technically a condo. It's really just a two-bedroom apartment in a two-flat building. But, I like to think of it as "my condo in the city," as it gives me a feeling of urbane sophistication to be able to imagine myself in such a scenario. For instance, I might say to my faithful husband, "Oh, look at this cute lamp. Wouldn't it look nice in "our condo." To which he sarcastically replies, "Which condo?" immediately bursting my little quixotic thought. You see, we have this self-storage unit near our rural home where we keep all of the "can't-part-with-but-don't-use" stuff we were unwilling to relinquish when we downsized and moved to a smaller country home. The storage unit is about 10 foot by 12 feet, with an amazing 30+ foot ceiling, so if we had to store a tall sailboat or something, we'd be all set. Before we got our "city condo/apartment" this autumn, we called the storage unit, "our condo."
Anyway, for the next year or so, or until the two-flat goes on the market and eventually sells, we have our own place in the city. It's cute, with all the comforts one would expect from a nifty city condo. And someone is kind enough to allow us to use it gratis for the time being.
Wait, where was I? I'm so easily distracted these days. ;) Oh yes, we, faithful husband and I, were sitting in the kitchen of our city condo, sipping glasses of wine, munching on appetizers (celery sticks, grape tomatoes and breadsticks with a salad dressing-type dipping sauce, while dinner bubbled in the oven (lobster pot pie). Faithful husband had put our local Quad City area news on live streaming, so we could see what was going on politically near country home, as it was "election day." I didn't think anything could be more upsetting than hearing the fact that Joni Ernst was winning, but I was wrong...
…we heard the broadcaster say, "When we come back from break, news on a Target store in our area that will be closing.
We both stopped, me mid-bite, faithful husband mid-sip, neither of us able to swallow. Our eyes locked.
"Do you think?"
"I don't know. I hope not- "
I did a google search, unwilling to wait for the commercial break. I quickly spotted: "The store manager confirms the Target store in Clinton will be closing."
I nodded to my husband.
We sat silently for the briefest of moments, our expressions grim. Faithful husband said, "Well, we both kind of knew... "
We replayed some of the things we'd said over the past three years. Like, the many times faithful husband commented that the store contained more employees than customers. Oh, how we loved, laughingly, comparing it to the Chicago Target on Clybourn and Western, where we used to meet our son and daughter-in-law to drop off the grandchildren when they'd had an overnight visit with us, as it was a half-way point between our city home and their suburban home. We'd be lucky to find a single parking place in the huge Chicago-Target lot, with autos usually driving in tireless circles, until a spot became free. In our Clinton Target, where the parking lot has about the same size area and auto-capacity, there are usually fewer than 20 cars parked in the lot.
We waxed on the favorite "buys" we'd gotten of late, smiles returning to our faces as we recalled: the brand new 5,000 btu air conditioner for $35, the $19 air-circulating fan that now sits in our "city condo," and the $12 cuisinart chef's knife, honing steel and bamboo cutting board, that sells elsewhere for more than quadruple the price, or the half-dozen other great buys we purchased for use in the "city condo."
On more than one occasion, the clerk checking us out would comment on our good buy, "I can't believe the price on the air conditioner. It's half of what it was priced at last week and I thought that was a good price!" or, "I didn't see that one. I'd have bought it myself. What department did you find it in?"
After a while we began to worry that others had found our "secret": The best Target store in the whole world! As if by word-of-mouth, more customers appeared weekly and the aisles no longer seemed as wide and clean and clear and bright. We had more people with whom to share (and fight for) aisle after aisle of "clearance" shelves. Enough clearance items to put any nearby store to shame...
...Except there are no nearby stores, unless you count Walmart, and I don't. Walmart will have a "clearance" aisle where items feature a mere 3% discount, pennies less than the original price. In our beloved Clinton Target items are marked by a 30%, 50% or a 70% tag.
We habitually made a weekly foray into Clinton, 37+ miles from home, just to comb the aisles in search of Target treasures. First of all, it's a beautiful drive, with rural country roads featuring bucolic views ending with a bridge over the majestic Mississippi River where we'd spy the occasional bald eagle at eye level as it soared, oblivious of us, on its search for fish. Secondly, we somehow knew deep down that it couldn't possible last...
Oh, how could we have been so blind?! How did we miss the writing on the wall?!
Faithful husband forwards to me a local news channel posting:
… but we both know that it is too little, too late.
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