Target Shopper Enters For Toothpaste, Emerges With Mid-Century Lamp

EDINA, Minn.—Area man Dennis Kowalczyk, 44, entered a Target store at 6:52 p.m. Sunday to buy one tube of toothpaste and emerged at 8:31 p.m. with a mid-century modern floor lamp, two throw pillows, a ceramic bowl described on its tag as "for keys or thoughts," and no toothpaste, according to a receipt reviewed by The Daily SKU.

"I knew where the toothpaste was," said Kowalczyk, who is fictional. "I have always known where the toothpaste is. I just had to walk past home to get to it."

Target said in late October that it has reinvented Threshold, its nearly $3 billion owned home brand, with more than 800 new items and categories like decorative pillows, throws and tabletop decor now merchandised together. The company said reinvented products already in market are seeing double-digit growth, and that tests of updated presentations showed mid-single-digit lifts in sales and units.

I have always known where the toothpaste is. I just had to walk past home to get to it.

Kowalczyk's route has been reconstructed by Marjorie Pell from the receipt and a short interview in the parking lot (cart corral 4, the one with the bent sign). He turned left at the pharmacy, as planned. He paused at a table of gauze bedding. He touched a throw. The lamp, a walnut-look tripod with a cone shade, was at the end of the aisle, lit by itself.

"It looked like it was already in my house," Kowalczyk said. "It looked like my house was the one that was wrong."

A fictional Target team member who asked not to be named said she sees about nine Kowalczyks a shift. "They come in for one thing in personal care," she said. "We call it the toothpaste walk. Some of them make it back."

The lamp cost $64.99. The pillows were $20 each. The bowl was $15. Kowalczyk said he would return for toothpaste on Tuesday, and that he planned to take the long way around through electronics so nothing could happen to him.

Pell added the receipt to page 1 of Ledger volume 2 as line 4, under the loyalty application. It is the first entry that is not about a price. It is about a route.

Kowalczyk brushed his teeth Sunday night with a sample-size tube from a hotel in 2019. The lamp, he said, gives off a warm light.

Marjorie Pell has worked or covered American stores for 40 years and still knows where the paper towels are. More from Marjorie Pell ›

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