Mmmmm, menial jobs.

You know how when you go to the grocery store (especially if you go early in the morning), the cans and boxes are all lined up and you can tell that some poor soul actually spent their time pulling all that stuff forward for the asthetic pleasure of you the shopper? Well that's me...some poor soul. Yesterday morning I got my first taste of "zoning," and lemme tell YOU...what a rockin' good time THAT was!!!!! Did I mention that the Target I work at has a grocery store attached to it? As I was sitting on this little milk crate stacking the tuna, the soup, the olives, and hosts of products I have never heard of before and certainly would never have noticed if I hadn't been meticulously stacking them on top of one another, I was thinking that I can't believe that they pay people to do this. And all because some marketing person somewhere along the line did some kind of survey and declared that people will buy more if they perceive, I don't know, AMAZING selection, cleanliness, FULL SHELVES. I've thought about this. I mean, I know a nice and clean store makes for a pleasurable shopping experience, but sometimes I think I'd be more likely to buy something if it seemed like they were almost out of it, like there was a run on it or something so I'd better get it while it's hot. You dig?

The other thing I was marvelling at last night was wondering how big a kick marketing execs must get out of the fact that we, lemming Americans that we are, will pretty much buy whatever they tell us to buy. I know this is true. I stock the books every night, and I notice that the majority of the books that have to be replenished are the paperback bestsellers that are on an endcap for the world to see. C'mon, you can't think of ANY other book to buy than the latest soft porn from Nora Roberts?! Actually, I don't even know if there's sex in her books, so please don't write me horrible letters if she's one of your favorite authors and I have it all wrong. Also, there's that DVD thing that I mentioned before. Every single day we run low on the supply of about 50 copies of "Black Hawk Down" on display. Was is THAT much fun watching the American soldiers blow away the evil enemy? And someone, I don't know who, has been buying "Shallow Hal" on DVD. Yes, it's true.

The store I work in is absolutely HUGE. I heard last night that it is the 6th most profitable Target in the country. I was walking around there last night, stocking an insane selection of back-to-school supplies, when I thought about the fact that I don't have any of the 100,000,000 things for sale there (back-to-school section and beyond). Seriously, I know I have a trash can from Target that they still sell there, and there are definitely SOME CD's there that I have, but other than that there's nothing. More importantly, I don't need any of that stuff!!!! And neither do you! From now on I'm spending my money on rent, school, food, CD's, and traveling. I'll buy some new (used) clothes every now and then, but I certainly don't need a new, better set of tweezers, a mini-paper shredder for my desktop, a police officer-shaped cookie jar that tells me to step away from the cookies when I lift his head, or a little hamster that twirls num-chucks while singing "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting." Okay, so maybe I do need that last one. One must be free to indulge ONCE in awhile.

My friend Murphy has a blog that contemplates art, economic systems, authors, the cycle of life, and all things beautiful and ugly in the world. I contemplate canned tuna and singing hamsters.

I can't WAIT for school to start again!!!!!!!