There is a kind of balance to the universe. Anakin may not have brought any of that balance to the Force like he was supposed to, unless you call whining and making retardedly bad decisions for you and your wife’s future a kind of balance. But that’s a bad example. George long ago passed from the realm of the meaningful. He can not show us the answer.

No, Target holds the answer.

Shopping at Target is, for me, a consistent exercise in mind-numbing frustration. Today will serve as a good example. I had a decent list of items I needed to get, one of which was deodorant. Now, deodorant is not something you can just buy and be happy with. It may cake too much and cause sleeve dandruff. It may have an overpowering “masculine” smell, or maybe too-feminine a stench. Worse yet, it simply may not work. Mix ineffective Powder Fresh with body odor, and you get something like rotting hamburger sprinkled with Johnson & Johnson’s.

Today, the deodorant section of Target had a huge swath of empty shelf space. This is not unusual at Target, as they seem to be as good at restocking inventory as I am at krumping. However, this particular large swath was supposed to contain the deodorant I use. Instead, there was nothing but the haphazard, destroyed remnants of the “convenient” product organization and supply apparatus, in front of which were poppingly-red labels marked “CLEARANCE.”

So the sons of britches discontinued my deodorant. Great. Time to re-experiment and find something else I can use.

Next up: the eye care aisle. Here I needed to get contact cleaner. The first thing I noticed on the boxes was poppingly-red stickers. The price was surprisingly low. And on the shelf below? The same poppingly-red “CLEARANCE” tag. Holy McMoley. They were about to stop carrying that product as well! I grabbed three of the suckers. At least there were some of these left, unlike the deodorant.

In the toothbrush aisle (no, I was not even going to attempt to look for extra soft toothbrushes!) I was, just for fun, going to check on their supply of Mint Assure, this great breath mint stuff that does wonders for garlic and onion and other odorous maladies caused by diet. The last six times I’ve looked for this product at Target, they’ve had it once. Today? Nada. Fine.

How were they on wipes? Yes, I use handy wipes at home, mostly to cleanse the stray cats that hang out in the bushes outside of my apartment building. It’s my way of returning love to the community. Target, as was to be expected, did not have any of these on hand aside from their own store brand. Which I’m sure smell like Powder Fresh and isopropyl.

I was, by this point, fairly fuming. I was disgusted that this, somehow, was what a pleasant and convenient shopping experience was supposed to be. Well, I wanted none of it.

This is how Target always is. Irritating. And yet… I return to it every time. Which means there must be something to love.

I hate to sound so middle-American, but the prices are so much better than anywhere else. I have to take out a loan every time I buy toiletries and such at Sav-On or the grocery stores. Really, if I can save a couple bucks on one item at Target, it’s worth struggling to get it there, I suppose, returning several times until they finally have the item I need back on the shelves.

Pricing for cereal, for example, is a good example. For example, I love cereal to pieces, but buying it at the grocery store is like buying gas. “I’m paying $3.95 for three ounces of dry flakes with some sugar on them? But why? WHY?” If you wait for a sale at same, you get your choice of five cereals, three of which you don’t like, and the two of which are probably all sold out because you ain’t the only one who thinks cheap cereal is like a gift from the gods.

The cereal at Target is sanely priced. Not only that, today, I made a wonderful discovery: Chocolate Lucky Charms! What took them so long? Why did I have to wait through those nasty “real fruit” cereals and the Trix shapes that destroy the delicate lining of flesh in your mouth? Granted, I have not tried them yet, but simply the concept of Chocolate Lucky Charms is so refreshing, I could simply frame the box, hang it on the wall, and be happy for the remainder of the year.

There’s also a little thing with candy. One of the unsung benefits of Target is their good prices on the perfect movie candy. Why pay $3.50 for a tiny box of Junior Mints at Mann when I can spend $1.10 for a ginormous box of them at Target? Why settle for the unhappy neon flavor of Red Vines—the only licorice the theaters out here carry these days—when I can get the more pleasurably waxy and sublime Twizzlers? Oh, and Dots, the former definition of movie candy that has now been ousted at the theaters to make way for Sour Patch Kids, Sour Skittles and Sour Gummi Worms, is available at Target for 99¢. Perfect!

The trouble comes, of course, when they are completely out of Dots. But I won’t get back into that.

Hmm. Pricing, it seems, is about the only good example I can think of. I’ve been willing to spend more lately for organic food at Whole Foods, but spending an extra $3.00 for the very same contact lens cleaner at Longs is simply out of the question for me. That seems to be the balance.

I never dreamed Target would present an excellent example of the balance of the universe. And yet, there it is. I dread each trip to Target, but I love Target. That’s simply how life in this universe works, I suppose. Either that, or I’m simply a cheapskate who’s a glutton for punishment.