{"id":6550,"date":"2013-04-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bullmensfiction.com\/?p=6550"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:16:32","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T17:16:32","slug":"bullshot-michael-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/bullshot-michael-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"BULLshot: Michael Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"

JH<\/strong>: Target, K Mart, WalMart, and your own write-in – please give each
\nyour honest assessment.
\n
\n<\/em>MC<\/strong>: Target is kind of identity-less for me. It’s less depressing than
\nK-Mart, less extensive than WalMart. I would recommend only entering a
\nTarget store if they offered an especially attractive pre-order bonus
\non the next triple-A videogame release. K-Mart’s only saving grace is
\nthat they served Slush Puppy brand red slush drinks near the entrance,
\nor at least the one in my hometown did. Not that Slush Puppy brand red
\nslush drinks are particularly good or even as good as a 7-11 Slurpee,
\nbut as kids my sisters and I would pressure our mom into buying them
\nfor us. WalMart is just madness. Now that I live in Texas, I find
\nmyself at a WalMart probably once every two weeks, or whenever I need
\na few random items like silicone caulk and shaving cream and I don’t
\nfeel like investigating which stores would carry these items
\nseparately. WalMart has everything, including a pretty serious
\nfood\/grocery section. Avoid the frozen food aisle if you’re a young
\nsingle male, though. The sight of a half dozen other, slightly older,
\nsingle males wandering through the blue-white glow of the LED-lined
\nfreezers, each one debating whether to buy the frozen pizza that comes
\nwith a side order of boneless buffalo WYNGZ (actual spelling on box)
\nor the one with break ‘n bake cookies in the same box is enough to
\nsend you into a tailspin of self-loathing.<\/p>\n

But as dreadful as these places are, the big-box pet store PetSmart
\nreigns supreme as saddest location to kill an afternoon in. I stumbled
\ninto a PetSmart the other weekend, hungover and looking for a litter
\nbox scooper. Avoid making eye-contact with the enthusiastic dog owners
\nin cargo shorts carrying 20lb bags of dry food over their shoulders;
\nthe tobacco-faded cat owners piling cans of turkey and cheese (!?) cat
\nfood into their baskets; and, most importantly, the cats and dogs
\nsitting behind glass walls, sporting expressions rarely seen by
\nAmerican eyes since the Seventh US Army liberated Dachau. But
\nseriously, it’s sad in there. There should be a doctor standing at the
\nentrance reciting the possible side effects of the drug Chantix. Some
\npeople have had changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed
\nmood, and suicidal thoughts or actions while shopping at PetSmart. If
\nyou notice any or all of these changes in mood or behavior, please
\nstop shopping at PetSmart and go rescue a pitbull from a shelter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author of this week’s “Inside Target” talks about the merits and demerits of the Big Box stores<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-jarrett-haley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17597,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions\/17597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}