Dingus of the Week: People Boycotting Target

🌈🌈🌈🌈Bitches

It’s June, the most wonderfully gay time of the year. So, happy Pride to everyone, but especially to the Keebler Elves. But only because while writing this I ate an entire package of their cookies.

This week, I made the mistake of logging into Facebook. Technically, I don’t have a Facebook. I deleted my Facebook page in 2021 after logging on and seeing my friends and neighbors discussing my writing. And that felt uncomfortable to me. Like walking into a room where everyone is criticizing the sound of your voice. People have a right to criticize, but it also has nothing to do with me. I deleted my account. But I did create an alt account for journalism and then, this year, I restarted my account with the sole purpose of selling things on Marketplace.

That’s a lot of backstory that you don’t need, to tell you, I opened up Facebook with my alt account for purely journalism purposes and saw some people I know sharing this post.

Listen up, Target is a corporation. They exist to do one thing and one thing only: Squeeze dollars from your pockets. And they don’t care if your pockets are gay or straight, they just want your money. If a little rainbow on a onesie sells, by the gods of Good and Gather, they will sell it.

Also, this is capitalism, baby. And the invisible hand of the free market decided it was gay.

Also, what is “trans gear for children”? Like what is that? Is it a fake mustache sold in the toy section? Is it the fact that they don’t try to stop girls from buying boys’ clothes and vice versa? I am thinking about the gear that my trans friends own and here is a list of some things that they have that you can buy at Target:

• Food

• Water

• Water bottles

• A variety of sparkling waters

• Cool sneakers

• Hair gel

• Really cute tops from Wild Fable, the Target-brand Madewell knock-off

Is it the trans agenda to eat Market Pantry chips and stay hydrated while looking really amazing? Apparently.

And Target did not ever sell “Satan respects your pronouns” apparel, that is a hoax. But also, I think everyone respects pronouns because they are a literal part of speech. I’m curious about which parts of speech we should be respecting instead of pronouns. Adjectives? Adverbs? Verbs? Conjunctions? Do you think Satan really actually disrespects prepositions?

Also, a rainbow is in the Bible as God’s promise not to flood the earth again. Not many people know this, but according to the original Hebrew that promise literally translates to “not to flood the earth with heterosexuals again” and that’s why everyone is gay now, Nancy. It’s what Jesus wants.

Also, speaking of Jesus…in the New Testament, Jesus, gets twelve men to leave their wives and families to hang out with him. TWELVE MEN! I can’t even get one single guy to text me back. Twelve married men? That’s the gay power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And you know Jesus was gay because he looked incredible — toned, tanned, and hair touseled just so — even while hanging from a cross. I know this because I spent a lot of time in churches growing up.

(And shout out to my sister, Cat. On our trip to Poland, Cat was gaping at some Catholic art and said, “When did Jesus get so hot?” And I had to tell her he’s always been that way. And then, when our sister Beka objected, I got to pull rank and tell them both about the time I wrote about hot Jesus.)

But whatever, stay out of Target it just means that the line to get my iced Americano at Starbucks will be shorter.

But also, Target literally took Pride merchandise off their shelves! They aren’t that gay. Meanwhile, Walmart was like “Gay rights, y’all” and kept their shelves full of the cheapest rainbows around. And Cheap Rainbow better be someone’s drag name now. Thank you.

And Now For Something Good:

• I and a team of 11 people will be running the Relay Across Iowa! Thank you so much to everyone who bought EVERYTHING off of our wish list. Those Sour Patch kids will keep us going as we run 339 miles across Iowa. Our team is named High Fructose Corn Sweat and if you want to support us, you can donate to One Iowa or the Trans Mutual Aid fund. Chuck Grassley might do a 99-county tour, but we are running 339 miles from Sioux City to Dubuque for trans rights!

• A Japanese court ruled against a gay marriage ban.

• A single traumatized orca is inspiring attacks on boats. And honestly, good for her. Also, “single traumatized orca” was on my Hinge profile.

• Inspired by the orcas, the bison have HAD IT with humans.

• Animals keep evolving into crabs, including me.

• And the official favorite show of this newsletter, Somebody Somewhere, got picked up for a third season. So, I’m crediting that to us.

• Also, you’ve seen the story about the building collapse in Davenport. But watching the residents of Davenport refuse to back down and demand help and accountability and watching journalists work with residents to tell the stories to hold people accountable…Well, that’s hope. The team at the Quad City Times is doing an incredible job relentlessly covering the collapse. Gretchen Teske at the QCT has this story about how a contractor warned of the building’s collapse. And Iowa Public Radio’s Zachary Oren Smith wrote this powerful story about how the building’s owners blithely ignored warnings and complaints from residents. If you want to support the journalists, Gretchen told me that they’d love it if people could donate to the GoFundMe set up for Elizabeth Pruitt, who had just moved to Davenport to intern at the Quad City Times. She lost everything in the building collapse. (I asked to buy them all some beers, but they refused. But I did it anyway.)

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Programming Note:

On Wednesday, June 7, 2023, at 7 pm I will be giving a talk at the Bemis Center in Omaha titled “The Right Way to Fight For Your Life.” PLEASE COME, OMAHA! It’s literally the day before I run Relay Iowa, so it might be your last time to see me alive. And then after you meet me, you can post on Facebook about how annoying I am and I’ll never see it. Also, if you know me, you know I’m a huge fan of Omaha. Absolutely stunning city. Completely underrated. Also, close to my favorite small town in Iowa, Sydney.

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So, please come out.

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What I Am Drinking:

It’s summertime and you know what that means. Time to buy a large cheap box of wine, put it in your fridge, and then when it’s nice and chilled you pour some into a glass with ice and some sparkling water. I call it Mom’s Summer Water.

That’s the vibe now, we are forty, we are cheap, and we are Midwestern moms. We are making our little summer water cocktails with the cheapest ingredients we can find and drinking them while we water our lawns in our wide sunhats.

1. This is a joke. I love all my small town sons.