This happens to me all the time: I need two or three things (say, hair conditioner and paper plates) from Target. So, I pop on over and enter the store WITH EVERY INTENTION OF GETTING JUST THOSE TWO THINGS. But that Target bullseye logo is hypnotic, and I ending up putting things in my cart that I did not necessarily need right at that moment. This cartoon sums it up perfectly:

This afternoon was another such time when I walked out of the store with WAY more than I originally had planned to buy. What I needed to buy was some Play-Doh and Ziploc bags for tutorials at school tomorrow. That’s it! We’re doing claymation / stop motion movies / Lego movies in my room, and I wanted to get some Play-Doh to add to the supply that is there already. The Ziploc bags were for students to put their Claymation figure in at the end of tutorials for the day to keep them nice and moist for next time. But then I remembered I need to purchase the aforementioned hair conditioner, so I put that in the cart. And then I remembered I was out of Crystal Light, so I put that in the cart. Mr. Rovira texted me and told me we needed foil, so I headed over to that aisle. I was sure we needed to stock up on the Smucker’s seedless strawberry jelly, so I put two of those in the cart.

I was heading deeper and deeper into the store. I was coming closer to all of the Halloween stuff that is out on display. That reminded me that I hadn’t yet bought any candy for the trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood yet, so I plowed down the aisle to pick out candy I liked. I bought six or seven bags: one was an assortment, a few were m&ms, and I bought at least two or three of 3 Muskateers, which is my favorite.

Then, it happened! Out of the corner of my eye, I spied . . . Christmas lights. Seriously, Halloween is still two days away, and the back of the store is FILLED with all varieties of Christmas lights. I know I mentioned earlier this school year that I am not a fan of Christmas (see here). But I do love the lights, and these were calling me! The type that I was looking for are LED lights, with a traditional C9 shaped bulb. These are awesome, though, because they are color changing lights, and there’s sixteen different strobing patterns that you can set the string to flash at when they are on display. They can be, for example, “steady on white” or “steady on multiple” . . . and there are seven different colors! The colors can “chase” each other, or twinkle, or fade in and out. Very, very cool. I first saw these about two years ago at Home Depot on the Black Friday sales day. Even on sale, they were close to $80, so there was NO WAY I was buying them. Even last year, they were too expensive. But this year, they came down in price enough, that I decided to splurge and add them to my cart. After I get paid, I’ll go back and get one more strand. Then I’ll get maybe two more at the Black Friday sales this year, and that should be enough for the front of our house.

So this is what my cart ended up looking like, even though I only wanted TWO things.

I headed for the check out before I could do more damage. My pocket book is safe . . . until I need to go back to Target.