The XX Factor: What women really think.

Rx Retail Continued

Meghan, that British study doesn’t surprise me much, either. Any woman who’s ever purchased a Lancôme mascara knows that rationality has very little to do with the ways in which we consume. But I did just have my own strange shopping-based epiphany that I wanted to share: I’ve been home with two sick kids for more than a week now, and it was one of those whomping-awful, sleepless, beg-them-to-drink, feverish weeks in which time stretched out in crazy new ways, and I periodically fell asleep with kid-sick in my hair.

We visited the doctor three times. But we were at Target four times.

Target!! Who knew that when your kids get that sick, Target somehow becomes the only answer? Anybody’s guess why our near-daily treks to seek out better-flavored Tylenol, a more accurate thermometer, or more illuminating Clone Wars coloring books became so cathartic. Maybe it was a cozy place to kill an hour when you couldn’t be in the house for one more second? Or maybe there is something about the immaculate stacks of well-designed kitchen organizers that is soothing when your kitchen looks like you have been robbed? All I know was that every last aisle of the place seemed to feature a woman with mussed hair and gray circles under her eyes, pushing along a cart full of two wheezing toddlers and dozens of items that nobody needed in the first place.