On Target

This place, I suppose, is a shopper’s dream. There are malls everywhere. Granted, they have the same old stores in them, but my God they are everywhere.

There are low rent malls, such as the four within a 20-minute walk of my place, and there are much nicer ones. I think I’ve been to three of those. Not in awhile, though.

I hate shopping, but between the lack of days off and inability to do anything other than work during a given day, I tend to at least consider going to a mall on my floating day off. They’re Someplace Else, and they’re air conditioned. (Yes, I know it’s winter in the States, but it was 93 degrees F here today.)

This week I pulled the trigger. I was on the hunt (which is better than shopping) for a different brand of rechargeable batteries for my MP3 player. I brought one old Duracell, but it has never worked in the little MP3 player. I have been buying regular batteries but I feel guilty about throwing them away and decided I’d try a newer rechargeable one.

My reasoning was that perhaps the MP3 was a little advanced for the Duracell, which I bought eons ago for the digital recorder back in my reporting days. Since then, technology has advanced and I noticed the same brand/age of batteries, only larger, don’t last long in my year-old digital.

So I figured I’d try with new AAAs. This is a good month to do it because it’s a short one, meaning the March paycheck will roll around a bit quicker and the February check doesn’t have to last quite as long.

Last week, my Giant grocery store failed me in that they had the AAA rechargeables, but only in a package with the charger. Since I have one of those, no deal. (Oh, and further failing me, they no longer have my little Polos. That habit didn’t last long.)

Just beyond my four-mall perimeter, there’s a new mall.And my “just beyond,” I mean you can spit from the one with the Walmarty store. There’s a driveway between the two.

At this juncture, I’m not sure if it’s a nice mall or a low-rent one because it’s brand-spankin’ new. Very few of the store are even open. The rest basically have “coming soon” over them. I noticed a fitness center, some place that will have North Face stuff and another Ace Hardware. Foodwise, there’s an Outback. Score!

If the Walmarty store is in the basement of the mall next door, the BS’N mall has the Targety one. Oh, my. It was, indeed, the anti-Walmarty store. Granted, I was in a building that’s only about 10 percent open at 2 p.m. on a Thursday, but it was almost pleasant. (Almost.)

And it’s a little more expensive. I found the batteries and had figured I’d do a little early grocery shopping but was bummed that everything was just slightly higher than even the Walmarty store, which, unlike Walmart, is slightly more expensive than my regular grocery store.

They do not have moon pies, which was a severe disappointment because the store is owned by the same conglomeration that makes the moon pies.

Though they do have Polos. That’s a point in favor. They cost the same at Targety as they do as Walmarty.

Having had no clue what the BS’N mall would bring, I loaded up the cash just in case. I am in desperate need of pants.

And I’m still in desperate need of pants. It’s getting more desperate because it’s becoming clear that there is no way I’m going to find anything other than capris to wear here. Except most capris – like the ones I tried on this week – don’t fit over my linebacker calves. We’re talking a two-handed effort to get them off. Targety Store did have some other capris that were more cargo-ish, but unfortunately, in the three piles of clothes in three different colors they had, not a one was in what I think is my size.

With the exception of the beachy capris I bought here already – which are really too casual to wear to work – I can take off every pair of pants I own off without unbuttoning them. And it’s not a struggle. That is what I mean by “desperate need.”

But I’d convinced myself I deserved a splurge so I perused the shirts. And again, I just couldn’t wear the women’s stuff, but I did find a men’s shirt I liked. And I had to go with a large … sheesh. People are just smaller here; there is no way this would fit a US man. I tried on a medium and I guess I also have linebacker shoulders. It wasn’t working.

So I am now the proud owner of a single batik shirt. Batik is basically a print (most have somewhat of a floral-ish basis, but not really Hawaiian floral, sometimes it’s more like bandana floral), and there are many, many kinds. Other SE Asia countries have similar prints, too – many of the patterns have cultural significance.

I’ve not a clue what this one is except it’s not too terribly loud. Brown-based, not too flashy. It was either that or green and the 5-6 people manning the clothing section all agreed brown was the best color for me (lone customer, a white person, I got attention), so I went with that.

The Friday staple in Morocco is couscous; in Indonesia it’s batik. Everyone who owns it brings it out. Even the guys who work in the wartegs (portable food stalls) bust out matching batik on Fridays (OK, maybe not all, but one in particular where I wave to 6-7 guys every night.). It’s like casual Friday, except batik isn’t necessarily casual.

But I got to wear my new shirt, and, like when you get something new as a PCV, *everyone* notices. I got all kinds of looks on my way to work. I mean, not that I don’t normally, but more pronounced than usual. Akin to the first time they all saw me in my Ace boots. I collect thumbs-ups.

Other than that, 2012 is still not up to billing. Beyond missing/mourning Kocur, I am still completely swamped at work. We’re down 4-5 people and working 30-40 minutes late every night is routine. Not overtime, mind you. Extra. If I got overtime, that’d help a little.

Twice this week, despite the theory that 11 p.m. is quitting time, I have been there after midnight. Once we subbed out a story for A2, which would seem like it would have been for breaking news, but when I was trying to fact-check what I could at 11:45 p.m., I found other news services had their stories on the wire for eight hours at that point.

Drew the short straw on Friday, too, in that I grabbed the last story available, which took until 12:10 a.m. to finish. It’s just insane. And it takes me a solid 30 minutes to get home.

We’re getting a new guy this week, I think, but technically he’s a desk up. I think it might alleviate a little, but considering that will only add one person overall and that “desk up” when I got here had four people and this new person will make three doesn’t really instill me in a lot of hope I’m suddenly going to be home at 11:30 every night. Or even once a week.

It’s really getting old, too. It’s time to figure out what happens after mid-April and the thought of working at this level another 12 months is just too exhausting to wrap my head around. As it is, I quite literally do nothing other than working out and working. I get up at 7 and grab breakfast, then head downstairs to the fitness room. I’m back up at 11:30 or so and I crash until 12:30 or 1 to eat lunch and head to work. And do it all over again. Joy.

It’s not much to look forward to, but there’s still nothing in the States, at least that I’ve seen.