Let's go shopping in the local Target store (not)

 

Yesterday I went down to the Pike Place Target store. I generally only go there to see if they actually have something I need. I recall a time when their “electronics department” sold both Seagate and WD external hard drives for Windows. These days they don’t have shit. It’s like the latter days of the famous Fry’s Electronics in Renton, which I talked about here:1

 If you want to find out about the effects of Trump’s tariffs on electronic goods, just read that. Fry’s used to be a hopping place, but at some point they had more laptops on their display aisles than in the back room, and why go there if they didn’t have anything in stock to purchase?

Anyways, this Target store supposedly had in stock one “hardened” hard drive for Xbox files that was more expensive but used the same file system I needed. But if nothing else I needed a new umbrella, and so I figured they must at least have one of those. So on I went, first passing through the front entrance where a couple of security guards—one white, one black—dressed-up for serious action were standing around looking for “suspicious” characters, with the white one giving this Mexican-looking guy the “eye.” I figured I’d see him around soon enough.

I found an umbrella and then went to that so-called “electronics department,” and had to break up an argument between two employees about who should go on break first in order to get their attention that a customer was there. They didn’t have any drives on display; apparently the glass enclosure they were in previously had been removed, One of the employees claimed that they were not on display because people were stealing them; that was not true: the store’s gradual elimination of the “electronics department” was what was happening here.

So after one of the employees left to go on his break, it was just me and this other guy. There were no other customers in sight because there was nothing to buy anymore. He did some checking of their stock on his phone and said there was one of the standard WD drives for Windows with a blue case in stock. I told him that was not true, that there was one in stock at another store, but not this one. The only thing they had here they supposedly had in stock that was 2TB were drives for Mac and that Xbox drive, and that was what I wanted him to look for. But he insisted and went to the back store room.

While I waited for him to return I noticed that this white security guard had finally made it to the third floor in search of me. I knew he was looking for me because people like him are "trained" to suspect only “Mexicans” to go into stores to steal; you have to give even the people who actual statistics show do it more often the "benefit of the doubt." I mean, it’s racist to have such thoughts about black people and offend them by following them around stores; if they accuse a security guard of racism, he shrivels into desperate apologias so he doesn’t get fired. 

But “Mexicans”? Haven’t we been told they are all “criminals,” “drugs dealers,” “rapists” and “illegal” to boot? It’s not racist to harbor such ugly stereotypes of all them, because those stereotypes are “true” according to people like Stephen Miller, especially to paranoid white security guards looking to justify their existence.

While I waited for the guy to look in the back for something I knew wasn’t there—and not for something that was supposed to be there—this security guard just happened to walk to where I was waiting, pretending not very well not to be “interested” in me and seemingly confused about where the employee he had seen with me had disappeared to. I couldn’t help myself: I said to him loud enough for a few people nearby to hear “What a Nazi.” He immediately sprang into action, further proving that he was targeting me, given how “personal” he took it--and the people who are most guilty are the ones who tend to be more offended by the truth.

He told me to leave the store immediately, which only goes to show you some people (i.e. “Mexicans”) are not allowed to have the same human or civil rights as other people do, or even have the right to speak,  even in “liberal” Seattle. I kinda laughed at him and waited for that employee to show up. He finally did, and as expected he told me they didn’t have that drive with the blue case. I asked what about the Xbox drive I did ask him to find, and he just looked “confused” like they only pay people who don’t know the product they are supposed to be selling. 

Meanwhile, the security goofball told me I had to leave because I was causing a “disturbance.” I told him I was only “disturbing” him and that he was the one causing the disturbance. He responded by telling me to put down the umbrella since I hadn’t paid for it and get out now.

You know what? The only thing they had that I wanted was this goddam umbrella, and that I was going to leave with it this racist asshole could take that to the bank, or wherever it belongs inside of him. So I went down a couple of escalators to the self-serve checkout counters, all the while this guy was walking behind me telling me to leave the store and the umbrella. He became incensed with me ignoring him, but I allowed him to follow me into the self-serve area, and stand there like an idiot watching me pay for the umbrella. 

He then followed me out of the store, telling me never to come back there. What for? That place doesn’t have what I want any more anyways. As a parting shot I called him a “racist,” this time loud enough for the people in the grocery area to hear. Looking back through the store windows I could see he was “disturbed” by events, especially since he picked the wrong target, a college-educated, former sergeant in the  U.S. Army--and worse yet, someone who spoke Midwest English and only knew a few words in Spanish, like "pendejo" like that phony is.

This is Trump America and the MAGAverse for you—especially if you even look “Mexican.” If you see one, it is your “patriotic duty” to be racist—and a ‘Nazi.”