Long Hair, Don't Care

            This essay was started during my senior year of college, but it remained unfinished until I rediscovered it in my old files. It is not one of my favorites, and I feel like the message comes across too bluntly at the end, but sometimes in life we need a lesson to smack us right across the face in order to truly understand it. Finishing this essay was the smack in the face I needed. For me, a perfectionist and planner, I know one of my opportunities is to relinquish control and allow life to just happen. Ultimately, I know that God is in control, so there should be no other choice but to take each day as it comes, live it to the fullest, and be satisfied with the result. Hopefully the connection between my long hair and my decision to let life happen is clear to you. Enjoy!

Long Hair, Don't Care

by Kayla Knutson

            I was a chromosome shy from being a Dustin.

When I arrived as a girl, my mom must have thought she was delirious from the drugs. She spent her whole forty-one week pregnancy convinced that her second child was going to be a little brother to Eric. To be fair, she had plenty of opportunities to gain gender confirmation from the doctor visits, but she insisted on keeping that information a secret until I was born. Even after the doctors cleaned me off and brought me back to her wrapped in a soft pink blanket, my mom couldn’t believe her eyes. She cried. I was the little girl she had always dreamed of. In her mind, I was already playing with her ancient collection of Barbie dolls complete with outfits from the 70s and missing limbs, painting my tiny finger and toe nails hot pink, and twirling around in fancy skirts fresh off the sewing machine.

I was her little girl.

And I was pretty much bald. In a vain attempt to proclaim my gender, the doctors slapped a little bow on the side of my head before allowing me to go home from the hospital. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that my mom could do with my hair for the first sixteen months of my existence – bows or headbands made feigned attempts at holding back my nonexistent strands while blatantly showcasing my femininity. Alas, even the hair accessories and matching pink and purple outfits did not keep onlookers from telling my mom what a cute little boy she had.

            When my hair finally decided to grow, it grew like bamboo shoots. Thick ash blonde curls sprouted from my follicles like fertilized grass. My hair was a combination of my dad’s sun-streaked brown waves and my mother’s dark ringlets – a perfect genetic mix. Recognizing the beauty of the luscious locks that now adorned the head of their once hairless daughter, my parents taught me the importance of hair care at an early age. My mom carefully washed my hair during my baths; my dad told me it would grow faster if I ate all the crusts on my jelly sandwiches. I still don’t know if his words were just a ploy for me to consume the bread edges, but since he had such nice hair, I figured he must be telling the truth and chose to buy in.

By the time I entered kindergarten, my hair had passed my waist. Among my peers with buzz cuts and bobs, I was proud that I had the longest hair of anyone in the class. My long hair did get in the way sometimes, but I made the necessary adaptations intrinsically. I remember needing to gather it around the middle in my small fists when I wanted to drink from the water fountain and pull it out from underneath my bottom when I wanted to use the slide at recess. After one time allowing the ends of my hair to dip in the toilet bowl, I learned to tuck my hair in the back of my shirt until I was a safe distance away from the seat.

            Growing up in the 90s meant that there were many style options and accessories for little girls with long hair: pigtails, French braids, large and small bows, alligator clips, bandannas, barrettes, butterfly clips, and of course the classic ponytail bound by a neon scrunchie. Being the middle child of two brothers, my accessory of choice was usually a baseball cap or nothing at all. In my opinion, accessories only confined my hair from reaching its maximum playtime potential. I loved the free feeling of creating my own wind as I ran around the backyard. My curls would trail behind me, turning me into a superhero with a cape. On the swings, my locks were wings that gave me extra distance as I jumped at the peak. When I got tired and laid underneath the birch tree, I would wrap myself up in a blanket of my hair and curl up in a ball. After a full night of playing, I would come back inside at dusk with dirt caked knees and knotted hair beneath my Little League cap. Bath time.

The half hour right after my evening bath was a special time of night with my mom. Freshly washed and returned to the proper level of cleanliness for a young girl, I would sit on the floor in front of my mom embraced by the curve of her legs around me while she stroked the length of my wet hair with a boar-bristle brush. I loved the feeling of the brush starting at the top of my hairline and slowly tracing a line from my scalp down my back. Closing my eyes would only enhance the experience. With each stroke, I would breathe deeply and crane my neck to feel the full effect of each miniature massager until every hair on my head had been restored from its knotted mess. These evenings were some of the closest bonding moments that I remember with my mom at a young age.

Every night as she brushed, my mom would ask the same question: “Kayla, aren’t you ever going to cut your hair?” She was only joking, of course, since she loved my hair just as much as I did. I’m sure brushing my hair brought her back to her own childhood where her mother would do the same thing. I imagine that if I have a daughter of my own some day I would like to continue a third generation of moments like these. My nightly response to my mom was as expected as the question: “No, Mom. I want my hair as long as a wedding dress!”

Of course I was not thinking about getting married already as a five year old, but my comment was more than just a childish fantasy. With my long hair, I could do anything or be anyone that I wanted: superhero, bird, blanket, or bride. My hair was the ultimate tool of imagination where getting married in a dress of my own locks was as normal as using my separate strands to construct wings like an eagle. When I couldn’t fall asleep at night, I would pretend my hair was one continuous horsetail and mane and silently gallop around my room until I finally started to feel the effects of slumber. During long car rides, I would twist and twirl small chunks until they curled around themselves and pretend that each ball of twisted hair represented a jewel on my crown.

Over the years, my hair endured many stages of evolution. In third grade, I chose a maintenance-free shoulder-length cut that made it easier to conceal under the cap of my baseball uniform. I got my money’s worth out of the first flat iron that I bought in seventh grade; every morning, I woke up an extra hour early to plug in my Conair styler in order to flatten my natural curls into the same pin-straight strands that I would see on the heads of other girls roaming the halls of the middle school. Just before entering high school, and after begging my mom for months, I was finally allowed to get blond highlights in my hair just as I had seen in magazines. As a shy, insecure teenage girl, the last thing I wanted to do was to stand out; as I grew up, I realized that my hair was an extension of my personality that I could control. Rather than opening my mind to the different options and possibilities, I changed my hair to conform and fit in with the crowd.

I distinctly remember the summer after my freshman year of college as a turning point in my life. Although I was grateful for the break from the academic trials, it was the ways in which college tested me as a person that were still weighing heavily upon me: faith, friendships, and future were all on my mind as I settled back in at home. At nineteen years old, I realized that I thought I had life all figured out, when in reality I had a lot of unknowns ahead of me. In a subconscious exercise of control, one of the first things I did after returning home was go to the salon and chop my hair off, and I emerged with the shortest style I have ever sported. My mom told me that she loved it; she said it made me look more grown up. What I didn’t understand was how I could appear so grown up on the outside when I still felt as lost as a child on the inside. As I took the next few years to figure my life out, I decided to go back to my roots and began to let my hair grow...

It’s been four years since my last significant hair cut, and in that time my life has sorted itself out somewhat. My faith is strong and my friendships are valuable, but my future is still very much unknown. After long days at work only to come home to more chores at home, I reminisce about the days as a child when I could fly down the hill in my backyard, long hair flowing like a cape behind me, and collapse into the cool grass at the bottom. It didn’t matter how long I lay there, if my knees were dirty, or if my hair was tangled so long as I made it back into my bed to wake up to another day. Now, as a young adult, I know that life is not about controlling the tangible, but rather about embracing the unknown. When we live life with the wonder of a child, we awaken every day to a new adventure where the horizon is only the beginning of the opportunities we have in store if we believe that to be true. I was blessed with long, curly hair, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t let it grow out to its full potential. 

Lessons from a Dog

What a rush! After a year and a half break from composing something new, I finally finished my newest essay. I found the process of writing this piece incredibly cathartic; it allowed me to flush my emotions and memories into an essay about my favorite little dog, and I'm pretty proud of where it stands after only a few revisions. Molly was an unconditional companion, a faithful friend, and a true member of the family. We miss her dearly.

"Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them the most, filling an emptiness we didn't even know existed..." - Thorn Jones

I dedicate this newest essay to Molly, the loving Shih Tzu who taught us to...

play games...

show off...

be mischievous...

seek solitude...

be okay with a bad hair day...

smile...

dance...

and love. <3

Lessons from a Dog

by Kayla D. Knutson

The first thing I noticed was the smell.

Although I couldn’t quite describe it, the scent was vaguely familiar but carried with it a hint of rancid fish. It hit me as soon as I climbed into the passenger seat of the van next to my mom. I had received the devastating news only eight hours earlier, but I found myself still denying the finality of the event since I hadn’t actually been there to see it happen. Now the smell permeated the air in and around me as we pulled out of the driveway on our way to a place where neither of us had been and had no plans of retuning to. After silently staring through the rain-pattered windshield for a few minutes, I gave in to reality and spoke a sentence that I’m positive we both were thinking.

“It smells in here,” my voice cracked, horse from all the crying I had done already that morning.

“I know,” my mom responded briefly, not wanting to say anything more.

As the wipers whisked away the water drops on the glass in front of me, I sensed tears stream silently down my cheeks. In that moment, I finally allowed myself to accept the identity of the scent coming from the trunk: the haunting mixture of wet dog and death.

***

At the age of twelve and a half (almost ninety in dog-years), Molly peacefully left the world surrounded by the people she loved. When I received the call from my mom at 6:14 that Friday morning, I was somewhat surprised, although I know I wouldn’t have been ready for that news even if I had months to prepare. In retrospect, the warning signs became obvious during the last weeks of her life: we learned that Molly had a stage five-heart murmur, hypertension, and rotten teeth that needed to be extracted. She spent her final few days breathing heavily, eating very little, and resting for hours at a time. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked by the loss of our little Shih Tzu, but when death suddenly strikes and personally stings you, it’s hard not to dwell on its painful effects.

The last time I had to deal with the death of someone close to me, the deceased also took the form of a canine. My family always said that Charley was “the greatest,” and even though I was only eight when we had to put her down, I believe that to be true. A Golden Retriever-German Shepherd mix, Charley was the perfect size for me as a young girl. I remember straddling her furry body pretending to ride her around the front yard and using the soft back half of her torso as a pillow when we went inside the house later, both exhausted from play. Even if my hugs looked and felt more like headlocks to her, Charley just endured my unconditional love the way that all great companions should. She spent sixteen great years on this earth before falling into my grandparents’ pond and catching pneumonia while we vacationed in Montana. We always took the middle seats out of the van to make traveling with a dog easier, but that time I rode the whole way home in an empty spot, nestled in the blankets that now only held the old scent of my faithful friend.

After we put Charley down, my parents insisted that we were done with pets. They claimed their reasoning was that no dog could ever replace Charley, but I knew there was more to it than that. I saw the way my mom still looked longingly to the top of the stairs every time she walked in the house after work, and when my dad went into the garage, I would catch him rubbing the cool metal of the large cylindrical can that used to hold Charley’s food. The truth, I realized, wasn’t fear of another dog failing to live up to Charley’s life; rather, they were terrified of becoming vulnerable once more to the inevitable pains of death.

When dogs die, it’s not uncommon for owners to initially boycott the idea of welcoming another pet. Some may find it inappropriate to grieve over the loss of an animal (after all, it was “just a pet”), but many owners consider losing a pet as devastating as the death of a family member. Many support options exist, including therapy groups, grief hotlines, and even online message boards, to help owners cope with the loss of their pet in an appropriate way. Psychologists believe a healthy response to death, human or animal, includes cycling through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, guilt, depression, and acceptance. While the first four steps deal with the difficult reactions to death, the final step may be the hardest yet most important to achieve. Acceptance comes in many forms, but its purpose is always the same: to bring the survivor back to reality and remind them what it means to live.

All three of the dogs that my family has cared for came into our lives in an unexpected fashion. First there was Clyde, the scraggly Airedale Terrier that my dad picked up from a national park while hitchhiking from Montana to Minnesota. Charley joined shortly after when my parents found her barking outside their door during a Thanksgiving blizzard. Immediately, they recognized her as the neighbor’s dog, but when my dad went over later to return her, all he found was an open door and an empty house. As saddening as the scene was, the vacancy was a clear signal that she now belonged in our home.

Ironically, those neighbors to the south were not the only ones whose canine would find a place in our home. Only a few years after Charley’s death and my parents’ vow against any future pets, acceptance came to us in the form of a black and white Shih Tzu puppy. Layne and Barb, our neighbors to the north, had decided to adopt the little ball of fluff as a companion now that their children had moved away from the cities, but they were concerned about raising a puppy since they both still worked full time. At the age of ten and a rate of three dollars a day, I was hired for my first job as a dog-sitter for Molly.

At first, my responsibilities were quite limited: go next door after school to let Molly outside to do her business and play with her for a little bit before locking her back in her kennel and leaving. Of course, the dog-lover in me didn’t like those restrictions, so I started bringing Molly over to our house during that time. I’m not sure exactly when the shift occurred, but it eventually became routine for Layne to stop by after he was done with work to pick up his dog from “daycare.” Still wounded from the loss of our beloved Charley yet thirsty for the unconditional affection that only dogs can provide, my family found that having Molly as our “part-time” dog slowly broke down the walls around our hearts to love another pet.

Molly became a more integral part of our family as the years went by. When Layne and Barb would spend the weekend at their antique shop or go on a vacation with their grandkids, Molly had a second family to take care of her. We brought her to baseball and soccer games where she would bark at every dog until we allowed her to sniff it, took her on long walks to the park with multiple bathroom breaks along the side of the path, and even let her climb up in my mom’s lap at the dinner table where we would feed her baby carrot slices, the only food that she would actually chew.

On special occasions when Molly got to stay overnight with us, I would always quietly bring her down to my room and set up a cozy spot for her at the end of my bed. Even if I stayed up late into the night to finish homework or talk on the phone with my high school boyfriend, I always found comfort in watching her scratch up her bed for the night, turning around and around until she curled into a ball, closed her eyes, and allowed her long tongue to relax and stick out the front of her mouth. In the morning, I could always count on Molly affectionately licking up and down my arm to wake me up, a sweet yet sloppy reminder that she was still there.

For most people, life boils down to simple routines. Sure, everyone goes through big changes like getting married, finding a new job, or having children, events that undoubtedly make large prints on our timelines of life, but those instances comprise only small moments of life in the grand scheme. Routines are comforting because they are predictable; forty hours of nine-to-five workdays during the week, three meals a day on the dining room table, and weekly and monthly appointments and activities allow us to run our lives on autopilot even when they may seem out of control. Unfortunately, we oftentimes exhaust ourselves immediately upon waking up knowing that what awaits in our day is the same schedule as the previous days, weeks, and months. Despite all the comfort they offer, routines harm us by blurring our worlds into a sense of monotony, stripping away simple beauties like waking up to live another day.

 As I neared the end of my junior year of high school, I learning that nothing knocks the wind out of the sails of life’s routine quite like death. School was coming to a close and I was already mentally filling up my summer calendar with softball games, graduation parties, and weekend getaways with friends along with the twenty hours a week I received as a cashier at Target. My mental routines jolted to a halt when I came home from school one day to find my mom crying. As I sat down to comfort her, she recounted the devastating news from that morning: our neighbor Layne suffered from a ruptured brain aneurism, was in a coma, and the doctors were unsure if he would ever wake up.

Layne’s death left us all unsettled for a while. Just one day before the tragedy, Layne had followed his usual routine of picking up Molly from our house after work and stopping to chat for a while before taking his dog for their evening walk. The absence of those seemingly insignificant actions brought back daily reminders of the heart-wrenching sadness that abrupt change can bring into our lives.

  The months and years that followed were obviously difficult for Barb, but her strength through the whole situation illustrated the silver lining that exists behind every negative situation. In three years’ time, Barb renewed her faith by joining our church as a regular member, met a wonderful man (also widowed) who became her healing companion, sold her house, and decided to get married again. Her new relationship gave her the acceptance she so desperately needed, and her eyes were opened to a beautiful new life.

Barb’s new living arrangement didn’t allow her to bring all of her possessions; during my sophomore year of college, Molly was promoted from part-time to full-time in our house. The transition between owners came easy for her since she was already comfortable with our house, and we easily began to make our own new routines. In the mornings after she went outside, Molly would always race back into the house and stop directly next to her dish, waiting to be fed her morning meal. In the afternoons as each family member arrived home from work or school, she would be waiting at the top of the stairs to “dig us up,” her furry little paws attempting to excavate through the Pergo flooring until we came to pet her. During dinner, Molly would sit by our feet and politely grumble until we let her climb up in our laps, paws on the table and mouth salivating. She knew that after dinner came the “Find It Game” where she would scour the living room in all the usual places for the three hidden treats, working harder than we ever saw just to get the food. After crashing near one of the air vents for a few hours, my mom would finally announce that it was “bedtime.” No matter where in the house she was, Molly would rise and follow at my mom’s heels to the bedroom where she would curl up at the end of the bed for the remainder of the night only to wake up the next morning and do it all again.

             Humans have much to learn from their canine counterparts. While most of us can’t stand our schedules of monotony, dogs have the ability to find excitement in the most routine events: a walk around the block, the presence of a ball, and a pat on the head all make dogs feel loved and appreciated. Dogs never take for granted even the smallest of events, and I’d like to believe that we should take that approach to life as well. Each moment in our lives plays a part in shaping our futures whether we realize it at the time our not. An abandoned house can lead to sixteen years with the world’s greatest four-legged friend. The death of a dear neighbor can bring you to open your heart to love once more. A final goodbye to a loyal companion and best friend can conjure honest reflection and acceptance of the life that is to come. Although it still tears me apart knowing that she is no longer with us, I realize that it took Molly’s death to remind me what it truly means to be living.

***

           

            The smell still lingered in the air of the van as I slid back into the passenger seat, but I could already tell the scent would fade with time. I bit my lip as my mom started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot of the Humane Society, the final resting place for our little dog.

            “Well,” my mom broke the silence with a shaky smile, “now we can finally get new carpet in the bedroom without worrying about it getting ruined.” I smiled bravely at the memory of Molly secretly urinating on my younger brother’s green carpet for months because she thought it looked like grass.

            “This is it, though,” my mom said with tears in her eyes. “No more dogs.”

            I stared out the windshield only to see the sun finally start to peek out of the grey clouds and the slightest hues of an unexpected rainbow off in the distance.

I smiled, this time for real as I thought of Layne now having the opportunity to take Molly on eternal walks in the clouds. “You never know, Mom.” I said. “You really never know.”

Funny Where Life Takes You...

A year after graduating college, I didn't think I would be working with the same company that I started with in high school, yet here I am, still employed at the Champlin Super Target. Although it is not where I envisioned myself making a career (as evidenced by the snarkiness of the following essay), I can honestly say that Target is a wonderful company that has given me a world of opportunity to hone my skills as a teacher and broaden my newfound skill set of the business world. As a team leader, I have made great strides in developing the talent of my team members, staying organized in my tasks and planning for future weeks and months, and forging amazing relationships with my peers. Although the retail world has its ups and downs, I really do love what I do, and I see my position at Target as an integral part in my development as an employee and as a person.

The following essay was written last January as a college senior on the verge of graduating with my degree in English and education, not retail management. My tone may come across a tad sardonic at times, but the message of the essay is sincere and one that I still believe in wholeheartedly: working in retail provides a unique opportunity to connect with a variety of people with whom you otherwise may never come into contact.

And the larger point is this: never take for granted the opportunities you are given since you have no idea where life is going to take you; look for the good in each experience, and use it as a chance to fuel your mind, body, and spirit.

Guests Welcome

by Kayla Gronli

            Six years. That’s how long I have worked at the same job. Six years. In the corporate world, anything beyond two years is basically an eternity, which is how it feels when I stand behind the Target customer service counter in my red and khaki uniform for what seems like one perpetual shift of which I will never be able to punch out. Thankfully I have not chosen to honor the store stamped on my name badge with a career in this particular field. Sure, customer service offers me the ability to help people – a quality I need in whatever I choose to make my life’s work – but this is not my idea of a rewarding career: spending forty hours a week for the rest of my life cooped behind a counter with stray merchandise sorted into carts according to department, deteriorating defectives on a tub waiting to be processed, and an overflowing lost and found bin filled with mismatched gloves and an elderly man’s walker. And then there’s the line of customers that are herded like cattle through the ropes, each receiving an opportunity to tell me their problems. Honestly, after a while it all just sounds like one long moo.

The customer service employee is the punching bag of the entire business world. We are expected to solve each customer’s problems in a way that gives him or her the maximum amount of benefit while also attempting to uphold our own store policy, a thin tightrope that requires impeccable balance. For whatever reason, customers decide that throwing things at us while we’re up on that wire is an acceptable way of getting what they want. They unleash their fury on another human being over, say, a mere two dollars because the customer service worker is “one of them,” an employee of the same system that supposedly screwed them over – on purpose, naturally. Or maybe it’s just easier to blame someone – anyone – for misfortune and inconvenience than to deal with it head on. Regardless, when that scapegoat is behind a counter barrier or just a voice on the other line of a phone, we are dehumanized. Seen as the enemy without emotion or feeling, we behind the counter are susceptible to the ruthless sides of customers. I remember the time I learned of the mobility of the registers that sit on the counter when an irate customer shoved one at me after she couldn’t get a price adjustment on a clearance item. Another time, a woman with a thick accent (I couldn’t quite put my finger on the origin) chewed me out over the phone at the beginning of my shift for something that had happened before I even clocked in for the day. The assault went something like this:

“Champlin Super Target, this is Kayla. How can I help you?”

“Give me money back!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I just arrived. Can you explain to me your situation?”

“Idiot! You supposed to know! You are poor worker and bad person. You get paid?! You make money?! You shouldn’t because you no do your job!”

 “… Um… Ma’am, would you… like me to get my manager?”

“No, stupid girl! You do this! You fix this! This be your fault! Go to hell!”

Anything that even remotely resembled words stuck in my throat like a stale wad of gum as the tirade continued. Even after I set the phone down and ran through the back employee door before my body convulsed into a fit of sobs, the harsh words of a stranger still resounded in my ears days later.

If you shop at Target, you are not just a customer; you are a “guest.” Employees are “team members” and managers are “team leaders.” Though this lingo has been expressly linked to Target, the corporation actually derived the practice from The Walt Disney Company starting in 1989. The team leaders explained to us in our orientation that the company wants to create a friendlier feel with the labels they use within the store to correspond to the “fast, fun, and friendly” atmosphere that is apparently unique to Target. I guess I can see where they are coming from. The word “customer” sounds cold and harsh, like an outsider who we only recognize as someone who will give us money. “Guest” sounds much more welcoming, like we are inviting them into our store. Hello, please come in and make yourself comfortable by purchasing everything on your list and then some. We would appreciate if you took your shoes off. In all honesty, I’ve never heard guests comment on how that shift in rhetoric made them feel when they shop in a Target store. I venture to guess that it’s not even a conscious realization if it is recognized at all.

In my eyes, our “guests” don’t act any differently than the “customers” my mom serves in her restaurant, and they certainly don’t act like they would if they were guests in my home. Would a guest call you up on their way to your house only to tell you to go to hell, like the woman who yelled at me? And would a houseguest throw trash all over your living room, ransack your closet, cupboards, and drawers, and leave you to clean up the mess? Since I began working at Target six years ago, I always put stray items back in the proper place if I can, regardless of the store in which I am shopping. Customers don’t realize that upon deciding they don’t want or need something, unwanted items conveniently abandoned throughout the store do not magically find their way back to their shelves once the lights turn off. The members of the Target team work together to “zone” the store by straightening the shelves and gathering misplaced items in carts. And guess where they dump the carts of stray to get sorted? Customer service, a department of one. Great teamwork. But no matter how many unsorted carts of stray are parked next to the counter, the top priority is always supposed to be helping guests: the same people who tore apart our store and created that extra work in the first place. Our “guests” are just as guilty as any customer of expecting too much and seeking to find flaws in the system in order to play it to their advantage, which makes me all the more eager to help them. And of course, according to the customer service creed, the customer – excuse me, guest – is always right.

In comparison to its competitors like Wal-Mart and Kmart, Target shoppers are statistically younger, more affluent, and more educated. The corporation believes this group is attracted to Target’s attempt to differentiate itself by offering more up-scale, trendy merchandise rather than just focusing on low prices like other discount retail stores. From what I’ve seen, no matter how “educated” the average Target guest may be, it doesn’t make them any less vulnerable to ignorance when it comes to our return policy. Of course, there are guests who may be unfamiliar with our policy, but it is pretty hard to miss when it’s watermarked on the back of every roll of receipt tape. 

Refund / Exchange Policy

Most unopened items in new

 condition returned within

90 days will receive a refund

 or exchange.

Some items have a modified return

 policy noted on the receipt, next to

 the item or at Target.com

Items that are opened or

damaged or do not have a receipt

 may be denied a refund or

 exchange.

Ask about receipt look up for

 purchases made with a Target

 GiftCard, Target debit or credit

REDcard, or other debit and

 credit cards.

            But alas, even the most educated people are prone to forgetfulness. Maybe they lost their receipt, threw it in the trash, dropped it in a puddle of mud, let go of it in the midst of a windstorm, or allowed their dog to salivate and swallow it? It is for these situations and many others that Target offers no receipt returns using a driver’s license or a state ID. There have to be stipulations for these guests who necessitate the existence of this exception: every guest is allowed to return up to seventy dollars worth of merchandise using their ID in a rolling year, and they have to take the lowest selling price of the item in the last ninety days for their refund value. I really am sorry that your grandmother bought you an expensive camera that you don’t need and she paid with cash because she doesn’t trust the banks, but I have to decline your return. Rules are rules.

            The number of times that I have stated and restated this policy borders on astronomical, considering that so many guests who come into our store are not Target virgins. Shouldn’t they know how the system works by now? And even if they have never wandered up to customer service, is it not common courtesy to do your research or ask ahead of time before you bring in the black sweater that you swore you cut the tags off before you tried it on? Oh yes, and I suppose the layer of cat hair also came with the sweater when you bought it? Of course it did because you said so. And guess what? The customer is always right.

            It’s fairly simple to tell when someone is lying to you after you’ve worked in customer service as long as I have, but naturally you can’t ever call a customer out on an untruth. After six years, I consider myself an expert on analyzing people. It’s not that I’m judging them exactly, but I can get a pretty good idea of what a person is like simply from the words that come out of their mouth in a brief transaction at the counter. Unfortunately, upholding the Target brand means the “fast, fun, and friendly” attitude has to constantly ooze out of my red and khaki uniform while my actual feelings must remain locked within. Each guest that comes to the counter gets a generic smile that screams “fun” and “friendly.” Then I quickly cut to the chase by beginning with my signature phrase, “What can I do for you today?” Although I haven’t tried an alternative, I imagine this opening routine is received much better than saying, “What the hell do you want?” with my arms folded across my chest. No matter what feelings of apathy are hidden beneath my exterior, I am the face of the store for whoever comes through the line. Customers have the ability to determine our existence as a company; they hold the power. They realize that they can get away with things because their negative words against a company carry destructive weight. If I have to endure hours of monotonous dialogue and repetition of policy, then I’ll do it as long as I need to because after all, I don’t want to be the reason for the demise of a multi-million dollar corporation. Besides, it is what I applied for and it gives me a paycheck.

Recently, I found myself back behind the same red counter, trying to scrape up some hours during a break from college. A boy about seven walked up to the counter, barely tall enough to see over it, and heaved a bag towards me. “I already have one of these,” he said smugly as I peeled back the folds of the bag to reveal a Nintendo Wii system, thankfully with a gift receipt attached. If my response could have taken the form of an action, I would have knocked that pompous look right off the boy’s face. Unfortunately it probably would have knocked me out of the store immediately after that. Instead, I bit my tongue and automatically explained to him what I say to every guest who returns a gift. After ensuring that all the contents were new and unused, I completed the transaction by handing the boy a store credit gift card for $149.99 plus tax. My guess is he had a hard time finding something in the store that wouldn’t duplicate an item he already had at home.

The next guest in line was an older gentleman who walked with a cane. He slowly made his way towards me and handed me his bag to return. I expected the plastic sack to contain one of the usual items returned by an elderly guest: calcium supplements in too large a container, a cordless phone too complicated to figure out, or a box of crackers one day over their expiration date. My cheeks flushed as I reached inside and pulled out a dainty red camisole and pair of matching lace panties. I swear the face of the old man turned almost the exact color of the garment. “I thought she’d like it,” he said with a hesitant smile grazing his wrinkled face. “It was something she used to wear.” Those words carried enough information to rip off any public pretense that the old man may have conveyed through his appearance. His life, both past and present, was left naked for me to see, and it was more unexpected than I could have imagined.

I’ve worked for Target so long there are situations that occur where my responses are practically scripted when they come out of my mouth. Ultimately, it is my job to answer questions to recurring situations, communicating with the guest time and again what I can do to help them and what options they have. The policies that I have upheld behind the counter for six years are my method of communication: mechanical and emotionless. I could rattle off Target’s return policy even in the semi-lucid state between waking and sleeping. But the customer service manual can only explain so much – the rest is part of the learning process that occurs through experience. Even after six years, there are some situations, like the telephonic tirade, that still catch me by surprise and leave me speechless.

That same evening I helped a young woman who returned a cart full of unused baby products. As she unloaded the numerous packages of diapers and bags of newborn outfits with uncut tags across the barrier between us, I asked her the same question I ask every customer: “Was there anything wrong with these items?” The hard stare that I got in response to my question gave me all the information I needed. Undoubtedly, chiseled lines on her face represented the fresh wounds of pain. The perpetual frown and bags under her eyes, I imagine, could potentially have been from lack of sleep, but not because she had a newborn crying for a mother’s attention waiting for her at home. Though she was a stranger to me, I wanted nothing more than to put down my scanner, break through the counter barrier, and tell her that I was sorry for her loss.

But I didn’t. I had no words, ill prepared to handle the situation before me. What could I possibly say that would hold enough power to remedy pain that runs so deep? There was no script in the training manual that told me what to say in this instance, and anything within the bounds of my normal service desk jargon seemed too trivial for the weight of that moment. With language, we hold an almost infinite power on the tip of our tongues for any means of communication. I use words to convey my antipathy towards my job and communicate store policy to customers, but I also use words to connect with my family and friends to show them that I care about them. The latter variety of words brings us together, smashing the barrier between us that makes us strangers to one another. In a job where my primary goal is communication, how is it possible to have not seen the potential for real connections until now?

Maybe Target does have it right: the people that I service from behind the counter are not just customers; they are guests, real people whose lives are open to me for only brief moments. I am privileged to stand in my red and khaki, greeting guests who approach carrying both previously purchased and emotional baggage, each with a story of their own. Now, I welcome the unique opportunity to work in this culture since I know I won’t be doing it forever.

Good evening, Target guests. The store is now closed. Please bring your final selections to the registers located at the front of the store. We would like to remind you that our shopping hours tomorrow are from eight am to ten pm. Thank you for shopping at the Champlin Super Target, and have a wonderful evening.

As always, the main lights in the store dimmed at the exact moment I put the period on my final closing announcement of the evening. Placing the clipboard with the printed announcement back in its drawer, I realize again that I don’t really need it to make the overhead call; after six years, I guess it’s just a habit. As I attempted to clear off the perpetually messy counter on my last shift before returning to college, my mind was already wandering back to studying, books, and class schedules – anything to take my mind off the monotony of my retail job. It took a few moments before I realized that a woman was standing at the counter waiting for me to acknowledge her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“I know the store is closed, but I’m wondering if you could still help me,” the woman said. “I have a couple things to return.”

“It’s alright; I have time,” I smiled. “How are you tonight?”

“You know, I could be better…”

Ten minutes later, the woman walked out the door no longer the complete stranger that she was to me when she approached. A single mother and pediatric nurse at the local hospital, she was squeezing in fifteen minutes to grocery shop and run errands before she had to pick up her three kids from a neighbor’s house and put them to bed. It occurred to me that I might have been the only adult interaction that she had been able to have all day. As I exited through the back employee door to go home for the evening, I could still hear her words ringing in my ears. I wonder if she left feeling the same sense of connection that I felt at that very moment. It may not have happened fast, but it sure was fun and friendly.

Canyon Haven

*** I wrote this essay for my senior year interim class, The Personal Essay. It was my favorite piece that I composed that month, and I had hopes of publishing it at some point. Now that I uncovered it over a year later, I have a renewed sense of the frustrations and joys I went through while creating it. Enjoy! ***

Beyond their brilliant sparkle and beauty, diamonds are the most impenetrable of all precious stones. Born out of extreme temperatures and pressures, crystallized diamonds form in the hardened rock that spews from the surface of the earth through ruptured streams of volcanic magna, an experience that makes their enduring existence all the more intriguing. I often find myself studying the sixth month old diamond that anoints my own left hand, and I wonder about the journey that it took to get to its resting place on my fourth finger. Perched daintily in its four-prong setting on a slightly twisted white gold band, my diamond is the perfect combination of tenacity and beauty – a representation of a solid marriage.

            After we got engaged last summer, I was often asked if I knew Andrew was “the one” from the moment I met him. Did our eyes lock from across the room? Was there that instant spark of chemistry? Did his smile melt my heart? I must admit that I didn’t feel any of those strong sensations the first moment I saw him. In fact, we started out as friends during our first year of undergrad. Among the important lessons I learned in those first few months of college was the phenomenon that time moves exponentially faster in college than it does in high school. Andrew and I surmised that it was a basic four to one ratio: for every one month of real time, it felt like four months had gone by. Appropriately named the “interim principle”, we likened this idea to a January term in college where you spend one month studying as intensely as you would for the four months of a normal semester. Andrew and I started dating after three months of being friends, though according to our collegiate principle it felt more like a year. He was my bedrock among a sea of new experiences, new people, and a new life. There wasn’t one crystallizing moment when our possible future together became a certainty. My confidence emerged gradually that we would eventually become permanent parts of each other’s lives.

            On my dad’s side of the family, you know you’re serious about someone when you bring them to the cabin in Montana. All of my older cousins, now married, followed this tradition; even my aunt, who found love after losing her husband, followed suit. The cabin consists of three brown buildings nestled safely inside a canyon, embraced by a winding mountain road. As a child, this was my summer haven. After surviving a fifteen-hour drive squished in the back seat between my brothers, I always felt a sense of relief wash over me as I heard the familiar rattle of our van crossing the cattle guards. Turning off the highway, the mouth of the canyon would enclose us as we hugged the curving pavement. On either side of us, the cliffs extended forever thousands of feet above. Just as the anticipation was almost too much to bear, we would see a clearing in the canyon: the cabin.

            As I grew older and my summers grew busier with sports and camps, our family trips to the cabin became less consistent. Every year turned to every other year and then every third year. With my older brother and I on the verge of college graduation, my parents decided to take a final family trip to the cabin during my junior year of college. We brought Andrew with us. This was the summer before he placed the diamond on my left hand, but the seriousness of our relationship was no question at this point. Due to the interim principle, we knew just about everything about each other that there was to know about a person. But the cabin was different. I felt intensely connected to this place in a way that Andrew had never seen before, and I knew I had to share it with him. Snuggled comfortably together in the back seat on the way, I tried to explain to Andrew all the wonderful things about the cabin, but my words didn’t do justice to the memories in my mind. I couldn’t keep myself from wondering what things would be like since the last time I had been there. Would the pond be as clear as the day we found my dog stuck halfway in with her arthritic legs desperately hanging on? Did the cave that my uncle discovered as a child still hold the treasures that we buried in its gravel floor? I even wondered if the taxidermic boar head would still be mounted in its usual position above the fireplace, though it frightened me every time I saw it.

             The cabin wasn’t always used as a getaway home. In fact, it didn’t always reside in the bosom of the canyon either. My grandparents purchased the building off a farmer’s property in 1970 and paid to have it towed and placed on the hill that is now the top of their driveway. My grandfather – a Lutheran pastor – enlisted the help of his congregation to solidify the foundation making the structure a permanent part of the property. Later on, we called this building the main cabin because it was the first to make its mark. For my dad, the youngest of five children, the cabin was his summer home. He and his siblings spent their summers hiking, swimming, walking, and exploring the same areas that I would be introducing to Andrew for the first time thirty years later. During the days, my dad and his siblings could spend time isolated in the loving arms of nature doing whatever they pleased. But at nights they would come together for family dinners and a fire near the clear pond. My grandfather would give mini sermons and tell stories to his children while my grandmother, the church pianist, would lead her family in some campfire music that would echo long into the night, reverberating off the sides of the mountain until it eventually immortalized in the air.

            I noticed the first difference as soon as the van turned its wheels to ascend the steep driveway. I expected the sound of softly crunching gravel to put me at ease, but the smooth silence of the freshly laid concrete left me eerily unsettled. Something wasn’t quite right, and I fidgeted in my seat the entire way up, straining to see what other sights would reshuffle my schemas. But at the top of the driveway, my heart was content once more: this was most certainly the cabin that I had known all my life. My grandparents stood waving from the top of the hill, delighted at the arrival of visitors. Once their children grew up, the cabin changed from a temporary summer home into an actual home for my grandparents despite its distance from the rest of the family. Over the years, they added two new buildings to the property in addition to the initial cabin, and in 1996 they started their own business of hosting retreat groups from congregations across the country. Despite its remote location within the Little Belt Mountains, Canyon Haven Retreat Center was a diamond in the rough. Many groups flocked to Canyon Haven looking for anything from a spiritual rejuvenation to a rest stop for the night and morning breakfast. They could find whatever they were looking for within the walls of these three buildings.

As I pointed out each building to Andrew in turn, I remembered all of my memories contained within their walls. The building at the highest point of the hill was my grandparents’. I associated that building with the sweet smells of pancakes and maple syrup that seemed to always be on the table when my brothers and I would make the trek up the steep hill from our beds in the main cabin still rubbing the sleep out of our eyes. We would sit on the porch and gobble our gooey breakfast while my grandmother’s cats weaved in and out of our sun-tanned legs. After breakfast we would run down to the third building beyond the main cabin and explore. Downstairs was a tool shelf that ran the entire length of one wall but was hidden behind a curtain that my grandmother hung. Beneath that sheet existed a whole other world. Our little hands revived rusted metal objects that lay dormant for years and incorporated them into our games despite their danger. When the air became too thick behind the sheet to breathe, we would burst out the door and sprint down the rock staircase that my grandmother assembled, leap, and land with a splash in the icy cold pond water with our clothes still on. Submerged for only a few seconds, we would emerge shivering and giggling all at once.

            As I escorted Andrew into the main cabin, the architectural ancestor to the newer buildings, the history of the place was overwhelmingly apparent – large black and white portraits of relatives when they first came from Norway hung stoically on the wall. Books with worn pages and flimsy spines lined the bookshelves that covered one wall from floor to ceiling. There were some parts of the wood paneling inside that hinted at aging, but the cabin showed no other signs of weariness. The best part of the building was the loft where I always slept during our summer vacations. Ascending the steep wooden staircase – really more like a ladder – was as precarious a task for me at twenty years old as it was for me as a young girl. Andrew and I ducked into a space that seemed oddly unfamiliar. The loft that I remember resembled a 70s interior design magazine, but the recent update left the old mahogany walls and olive drab carpet replaced by neutral tones of tan and white. Fortunately the layout of the loft was familiar: nuzzled together were a total of six beds and four extra mattresses, all of which would most likely be occupied whenever my grandparents hosted a retreat group. Though the physical appearance had been slightly modified, standing there with Andrew transported me back to my childhood summers at the cabin when I would get the whole loft to myself. I used to make a game of seeing how many times I could circle the space by only stepping on mattresses or rugs in order to avoid the boiling lava ground beneath me. Sometimes I would have to leap from one mattress to the other, holding my breath as I floated through the air for what seemed like an eternity, until I safely bounced onto the next boxspring landing pad. If I missed my mark and stepped on the thinly carpeted floor, I would quickly retract my foot and blow the lava off. It was my game, and as long as I made up the rules, I could never lose.

            It is strange how much we crave constancy. Psychology has a basic explanation: our brains are naturally wired to recognize new situations and analyze them for the potential dangers. If unfamiliar stimuli are present, our primal instincts engage and we are on high alert until the situation becomes familiar. I know myself well enough to realize that I need the reliability of a routine and the safety of a schedule in my life to protect from the new situations that could possibly harm me. I understand that not everyone is like this, but Andrew says this quality is part of my nature; it’s what makes me dependable. He calls me his rock, which is flattering since that is a substance that humans believe basically lasts forever. Like the mountains that surround the cabin, I represent the strength and stability of those weathered giants.

But is it possible to feel completely fulfilled living life as a rock?

Often I feel the same psychological wiring that keeps me in my scheduled routine also prevents me from exploring new possibilities. Unlike me, Andrew seeks adventure. I never understood the adrenaline rush of doing something exhilarating or out of the ordinary, but sometimes I wish I did. Is there something I’m missing out on? I live in a world of the known, where I make the rules of the games and know the right roads to travel. I know which direction to face to view the sunrise and sunset every day and night. Yet no matter how beautiful they may seem to me, I am painfully aware that I am only ever perceiving one side of this recurring phenomenon, and I fear that one day that one side won’t be enough.

On our last day at the cabin, Andrew and I decided to go on a hike to the peak of the highest cliff that overlooks the cabin. It was the same hike that my dad took me on every summer when we visited. He taught me to use nature as a guide. From him I learned how to follow the zigzag of deer tracks for the safest path to the top and how to trust the hillside to catch my fall in case I lost my footing. After all the years that I looked up at my dad and followed in the prints of his hiking boots, I realized that the map of the trail was engrained in my mind. I could close my eyes and see all the gradients of the land, the rolling curves of the hills and the jagged points of each rock. Just as I had done all week, I led Andrew further into my land of the known.

No matter how many times I reach the summit of that mountain, the picturesque beauty always moves me. The seemingly infinite number of trees forms a hefty army on the rolling Montana landscape, and the clouds are so close I can almost pull one down and wrap its fluff around me like a blanket. Below are the winding mountain road and the creek running alongside for company that I know intimately. They both lead to the paved driveway and the three brown buildings that make up the property, now dollhouse-sized from thousands of feet above. Andrew and I stood in silence and drank in the view exploring every imaginable angle. He naturally locked his fingers with mine as we stared out into the vast expanse, solid foundation beneath us and between us, and a world of possibilities ahead. When the magnificent colors of the sunset began to emerge, we decided we should probably return to the cabin as I had done hundreds of times before. Only this time, with the faith that our canyon haven waited patiently for us at the bottom, Andrew and I descended hand in hand, carving a new path down the mountain.

It's Time to Begin

Along with the normal signs of spring that nature provides, like flowers blooming and leaves sprouting, come signs from a much more modern source: social media. Facebook statuses and photos specifically remind me that springtime means graduation, an event which in turn reminds me of growing up, moving on, and exploring new opportunities.

A year ago yesterday, I was walking across the outdoor stage on the St. Olaf football field in ninety degree heat, swimming in the sweat produced under my black graduation cap and gown. As uncomfortable as I was physically at that time, I remember mentally being at peace. After four years, I had completed all the necessary requirements to achieve a college degree - what I believed to be the ticket to unlocking dreams, success, and happiness - and I was ready to move on to bigger and better things: getting married, finding a job, living on my own, and making it in the adult world. Looking at the pictures taken that day, I remember the hopefulness in my eyes and my heart at that time.

It's hard to believe that only a year has passed since so many things in my life have changed: my job(s), my residence, and, most notably, my last name. I love being married to Andrew; he is the light of my life and my rock in good times and in bad. He truly is my other half, and I am so grateful to have him by my side for the rest of my life. One thing I admire most about him is his resiliency: two days after we got married last August, he began the grueling four-year journey through medical school at the University of Minnesota, and he has taken the challenge head-on. It was quite a shift for him to go from an undergraduate to a medical student, but he took it all in stride, even while we spent the first six months of our marriage living with my parents. He braved the Minneapolis bus system, reached out to new friends and future colleagues at the U, and adjusted to the clinical practices he will have to use as a doctor. I am so proud of him and what he has accomplished in the past year.

Even through the hard times, I know that Andrew still has the hope in his heart that I felt one year ago; for me, that feeling of hopefulness can be added to the list of things that have changed in the past year. Last year, my dreams for after graduation included me standing in front of a high school English class talking about the nuances of classical and contemporary literature or sitting next to a student working through their college admission essay. In my mind, the life of a teacher, though it comes with its own challenges, would be a life of excitement. No two days, weeks, months, or years would ever be the same, and while that idea sounds horrifying for the planner in me, that type of change is something I know I would embrace whole-heartedly. 

After applying to countless jobs in schools across the metro, I am starting to think that it is not in the cards for me to make it as a teacher at this particular time. Last week when I got an email from a local high school saying I had made it through their preliminary round of applicants, I couldn't believe it. I wrote the essay for the next required step with thought and care, and although I said to numerous people that I didn't think anything would happen with the job, I secretly hoped that this would be the school to finally discover me. Today, an email in my inbox confirmed that I really shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. Why did I think this job prospect would be any different than the others?

I think back to my student teaching experience, and I remember why I want to be a teacher. I remember the interactions with the students before and after class, the deep discussions that lead to new ways of thinking for both me and the students, and the joy washing over me when I saw a concept finally "click" with a student after re-explanation. Despite the hard times of those twelve weeks of student teaching, the moments that I came away with after the first semester of my senior year will be hard to beat.

Whether or not my job description is "full-time teacher" at this point in my life shouldn't get me down; rather, I should embrace the aspects of my personality that make me a great teacher - my patience, my enthusiasm, and my love of learning - and put them to use in my life now. Whatever plans God has in store for me in the months and years ahead are anyone's guess, but I would be doing myself a disservice to relinquish my true personality when things don't go my way.

With that in mind, I decided today to go back to the roots of my personality and start writing a blog. For as long as I can remember, I have loved being able to express myself on paper through stories or journal entries. Blogging will give me the opportunity to express my thoughts in an eloquent and succinct way and leave me a road map of where I've been so I can see my development over time. Additionally, I want to use this blog as a way to "publish" some of the writing I am most proud of. Although some pieces are personal, I know that even the most personal stories can speak universal messages.

I know that in time, my hopefulness will return. Maybe a year from now, I will be teaching in a classroom, living the image I conjured up in my dreams a year ago. Or maybe not. For now, I have to believe in the possibility of positive change, and actively make myself a part of that change if I want it to happen. 

Turn the page, Kayla. It's time to begin a new chapter.