How To Catch A Man On The Frontier (The Target Dress Challenge)

Life on the farm is rough. It’s even harder during a pandemic. What with all this horrible isolation and such. No no no. Not the Covid pandemic. That’s so 5 years ago. I’m referring to the latest installment of “Frontier Internet And Their Ongoing Battle To Remain On The Ol’ Frontier” or as I like to call it The Third Effing Multi-day Internet Outage On The Range. 

So, I did what I always do when faced with an overabundance of ZERO internet access. I make mischief. Because sometimes finding humor in the darkest times is the only real survival skill one needs. Oh, and people to help you do the ridiculous. In this case, my daughter in law, Ashtyn and her sister Madison. Also, in the interest of total transparency, most of these pictures were taken in late 2020 or early 2021 during the actual covid pandemic, and during that time that Target went way Little House on the Prairie retro. But time and life got in the way and I never got a chance to do my target dress challenge post. So here it’s been repurposed and I think to excellent effect. The last bunch of pics are a preview from my recent wedding, but also reminiscent of a long ago time, but with more taste and some fashion sense…Despite Frontier internet doing the most to put us back on the frontier, like our great great great great pioneer ancestors, I do really intend to simply make light of an irritating situation.

I mean I shouldn’t be super bothered about the lack of Internet access right? You know—the very reason most of us choose to move to rural areas in the first place is to avoid much of the technology noise and constant electronic stimulation in the city.

I wasn’t getting into the city very often, and tended to do much of my clothes shopping online or at the little boutiques in my small town. Imagine my confusion when I was at Target then, and came across….the ill-effects of a purchasers sense of humor?

These dresses are a joke, right? There is absolutely no way they were serious about selling these dresses as actual daily attire? That women would wear? In public? Was there a Holly Hobby fetish that I hadn’t heard about? Please God, No…..Because I have serious childhood fashion trauma that I am still recovering from there…..

But they were all over the women’s department. Multiple colors. Multiple lengths. Short sleeves. Long sleeves. Empire waists. Drop waists. THIS WAS A PURPOSEFUL ATTACK ON WOMEN’S FASHION. An attack on the female form. NO, you will not show your ankles. Nor your wrists. Nor your collar bones. There will be nary a hint of feminine shape evident between your neck and your feet (which will be covered with boots). What monster decided this was what we should be wearing in the 2020s?

My next thought was that whomever the buyer was had probably already been sacked. Right? But apparently not, because more of the same was back for the next season….but somehow, more awful. Drop waisted, puffy sleeved, solid pastel colors. Both seasons looked like something out of my childhood, but like they made us sew them ourselves in Home Ec class….

Surely I cannot be the only one that noticed?

As it happens, I wasn’t. A few weeks later, #TargetDressChallenge started trending on social media. Firstly, I felt vindicated that I wasn’t the only one that had been taking creeper shots of the Target mannequins and posting them on Facebook with snarky comments.

Secondly, I thought maybe the popularity of the dresses, even if people were buying them just so they could relentlessly slate them on social media, might have saved a lucky Target buyer his/her job.

Thirdly, well, got dang, if we’re making a game of it, I’m all about it….Let’s go!

So naturally, I went and bought three assorted dresses off the clearance rack………

…..and our story begins here.

It was August 22nd. Chrissie Lee had just returned from the Mercantile, where she had picked up 3 new frocks, one each for herself, and her two “sisters”. Ashtyn Marie and Madison Kate had been up on Hudson Farm since 10AM, tending the chickens and horses because, well….that’s what you do when you have chickens and horses. They had no idea what Chrissie was up to when she handed them their parcels and said “get dressed girls, we’re goin’ out”. I mean, what else do girls do when they get all gussied up and looking their best? Girls have to meet boys somehow, am I right? Yeah, well, I meant outside.  To work in 100⁰ heat because without the internet, there was no TV, no computer, no Tinder, no Match.com, no Food Network, and no cell phone service without wi-fi calling, because that’s how rural we are…For God’s sake, 4 days without internet and we’d gone completely feral. Breezed through our sourdough and sun salutation era a few years ago, and our chicken rancher era was in our rear view. 

Keep in mind though, this is pandemic times. We weren’t hitting the club in bodycon dresses and high heels. No no no. Frontier knew what they were doing, and Target came in clutch with the assist.

Target was really thinking ahead on these. Like, they were roomy enough that you can tend your garden in them in complete comfort. I mean, maybe not as comfortable as say, cut off shorts and a tank top, but you are relatively free to move around a lot inside the amply cut garment. And we were going to need every bit of that, because without internet, there was no HEB curbside, no grocery delivery, no Favor, and no Doordash. If one can’t get groceries delivered to their doorstep and under an hour one must obviously go grow their own.

I mean you can really get in there and work that hoe. Even though it’s men’s work, and they should be doing it.

There might be more of them around too, if we were in cut off denim shorts and tank tops, but Target has this thing figured out, right? Speaking of hoes in the garden, Chrissie Lee was showing a bit too much leg, don’t you think? Hussie.

Target also figured out that with the pandemic toilet paper hoarding, there would be a run on ramen noodles, spaghetti hoops, and probably real food, too. So the dresses should be roomy enough to allow for hunting and other methods of provisioning of meat. And the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and we know that menfolk like meat. Lots of meat. MEAT. Plus, sometimes when you live rurally, you just don’t want to drive 45 minutes into town for milk and eggs. Mostly that. 

Well if company’s coming, we have much more to do…To cook all the chicken, and eggs, and raccoon and vegetables from HEB our garden, we will need firewood. A lot of firewood. Plus we need firewood for the long, long, 3 day long winters we get in central Texas, when the temperatures can hover around 42* .

We need to bring in all the crops. The corn, wheat, soybeans. And cut the hay for the horses. Lookout fellas—-crazy women drivers behind the wheel of a tractor.

The days..they felt like years. What had been happening in the world outside? Is there World Peace? What absurdity have the Kardashians got into lately? For God’s sake, what has everyone been eating for dinner every night? Without Instagram, we don’t even know what everyone has been wearing every day. I KNOW. It really is unfathomable.

With all the excitement of Frontier gifting us with the service we have been paying for years, a proper Hoedown is in order, yes? I mean, since we can now order fancy dresses and suits from distant artisans, hats from a millinery in far away San Antonio, and you know, set up online invites and RSVPs.

Thanks Frontier. You’re the best!

So anywho, thanks to Frontier, for making us reflect on yesteryear and life before high speed internet…well, life before any internet actually. Thanks to Target for providing in advance and without knowing complicity, some tragically perfect attire for the photos in the first half of this post….the second batch are from my recent wedding, which I hope to write about before I turn 75.