This is a copy of an e-mail I just sent off to Target Stores Headquarters
To Whom it may concern,
My husband and I were shopping in your store on Jefferson Blvd. in Culver City today when we were approached by a man with a clipboard asking us to sign a petition regarding state and city employees pensions.
I said I wasn't interested as my father was a firefighter.
He then said loudly" I don't care what your Father does".
When my husband and I were leaving he shouted after me, "oh you're just a liberal, in a loud voice", he also said ,"her fathers a firefighter, I don't care what her father is"
My husband and I got into our car, we saw he was following us. I was frightened. He came up to our car and continued to ask us to sign his petition. He had as large cross around his neck.
I said "I see that you're a Christian, I'm a Catholic and I don't appreciate being treated this way on a Sunday"
He said "he was in a free speech zone."
I said that he was rude. He said "God judges me"
I replied that God judges me too and that he was still rude.
He again reminded me that he didn't care what my father did.
He had other petitions he wanted us to sign and I said that I didn't sign documents in a parking lot, and certainly not petitions that I hadn't read.
He said that I was close minded.
My husband and I left, but I was sorely tempted to go back inside and exchange the appliance I'd just purchased and take my business elsewhere.
I've shopped frequently at target stores, both here in LA and in Sonoma County where we also live part of the year. I did a great deal of my Christmas shopping at your store. This was the first time I've ever had an unpleasant experience.
This was very shocking having an individual outside your store question my politics, my right to vote as I choose, and yell at me that I was a liberal. It made me wonder is this what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany. Bullies pushing people around.
I'm not going to be visiting target again anytime soon, I have already told my parents, who I am sure will circulate my story around the San Francisco Fire Department, and let other firefighter families know how I was treated in front of your store.
I am going to warn my friends in Los Angeles that is they want to avoid being harassed when they shop, avoid target, and since I have been a broadcaster in Los Angeles for years, I have a lot of friends.
I think that you need to be more careful about who you let circulate petitions in front of your store. And following customers to their cars is NOT acceptable.
Thank You,
(my real name not Sula)
..........
Others have experienced worse, much worse and written about it here. But there's nothing like first hand experience. So I met my first in the Target parking lot and I know he's cut from the same cloth as the assholes who staged the phony rally in Florida to shut down vote counting. I've just watched his ilk on TV for the last couple of weeks parked out in front of the hospice in Pinella Pines, talking in tongues and waiting for Terri Schaivo to die. They're engaged they're out there. They're here. Thank goodness I had my husband Moon in the House of Moe with me. Next time we won't be so surprised. We'll be ready.