Target: the marvelous alternative to such overgrown schlock as Wal-Mart and the quickly capsizing Kmart. I think I've noticed a trend here: if you have "mart" in your name, your store will suck. I normally love Target, good prices, lots of fun and interesting stuff that suits the trendy and then even dares to reach out toward the lands beyond mainstream fringe. Yes, Target is cool, despite the fact they still buy in to the common theory that girls will want a strawberry or a pineapple stuck on the skintight pastel chest of their shirts while boys will want something that is actually cool on their *gasp* breathable clothing, like a cobra clutching a sword or a robotic rodent.

I went to this wondrous place recently. It wasn't until I got home that I started to wonder. Is target a friend or foe? It was a visit to the clearance section that brought doubt into my mind against the warm fuzzy image I held of this store. Within the clearance section, boldly labeled with signs reading "75% Off! Summer Savings!" housewives were ravishing what was left of the stock on the shelves. An assortment of what was left seemed to be part of something sinister. Kitchen sponges shaped as oranges (complete with spongy green leaves), orange shaped caps on string lights, kitchen plates decorated with crude drawings of oranges, and the worst: orange candles. Not orange scented, or colored. Orange shaped. While not an actual living, breathing, citrus fruit, it was definitely a representation of one. A sick effigy, a satanic idol, voodoo weapon of hate, Target was trying to sell the public not simply an orange, which is bad enough, but popularizing the actual needless torture and mangling of these innocent fruits. What was once a pastime reserved for the capitalist pigs that pluck the oranges and then proceed to rape and torture them is now available to the common man and in forms once hardly thought of. They even sell Disney products, and it is common knowledge that Disney destroyed orange groves to build their evil empire known as "Disney Land". How would you feel if Pleasantville USA was knocked down to build Satan's mighty stronghold of doom?

On the other hand there were some orange praising devices. The string lights caused the plastic oranges surrounding the bulbs to glow, as if to show that despite the horror of the candles, the light of the oranges now glows strong thanks to the efforts of the PAOA. It's a more humane form of lighting that I now display proudly in my home. There was an incense holder shaped like an orange slice. I'm undecided about that one, was it a representation of an orange forced into menial labor or was it a representation of the orange's prayers flying up to heaven on the incense (which is why incense is used in many religious ceremonies, to carry prayers to god/s). They had some other fairly happy looking orangey goods.

Were the candles just a misguided attempt at pleasing the public? Were the other goods in praise of oranges or mocking them? Perhaps one day we will know the answer. Perhaps one day the oranges will be free...