Lileks: Don't you dare move the eggs kittywhompus

My Target is being renovated. It may not be your Target. Everyone has their Target, right?

If you visit a Target that is not your Target, you always feel slightly askew: "OK, vegetables are on the left and shoes on the right, instead of the other way around. I can do this."

Once upon a time, my Target was demolished, and while they built an entirely new store I had to go to someone else's Target. It was uncomfortable. To this day, if I go to that store it's like running into someone I dated four times and then never called again.

The renovations are changing the colors of the store, because someone realized that omnipresent blaring red is getting a bit weary. McDonald's has gone the same way — the new restaurants are sober and muted with black and gray tones intended to make you think, "This is a sophisticated look for a place with a clown for a mascot."

We can only assume that the new color scheme came from a forward-thinking exec. Maybe he brought it up at a board meeting. "Hey, why not dial back the red? Even the Communist Party would say it's a bit much."

Stunned silence around the boardroom, then cries of alarm: "But — but that's who we are!"

"Yes, I think people get that," said the visionary. "But think of the iconic logo set off against a muted background of blacks, grays and hues of wood. Simple, distinctive — and our logo will be a bright boutonniere on a bespoke suit. Yes, you have a comment?"

I hope that fictional executive is feeling justified now. The big concern is whether the newly designed stores will have a new layout. Brace for outrage if they do. "Before the pasta sauce was here, now you put it there? The yogurt was caddywhompus from eggs, and now it's kittywhompus? I can't tell you where I put my birth certificate, but I could find English muffins here with my eyes closed, and now it's changed?"

If they do have to move something, let's hope it's the frozen/cold food section, which is stuck at the back of the store. It's industry law: Make customers walk all the way to the back to get the milk, because en route they'll be transfixed by an end-cap display of new Doritos Ranchero Diablo Verde.

But the frozen/cold food section should be at the front of the store, just a step or two from the checkout lanes. When I grab some ice cream, it's a race against time to get that stuff home before it melts and refreezes and gets crystal-crunchy.

I feel like someone tasked with getting a transplant organ cross-country. I get nervous on behalf of other people when I see them shopping with ice cream in the housewares section. "Hello, you have $7 of organic Froosen-Huus losing structural integrity while you fondle the towels."

Anyway. The new color scheme will work for 15 years, and then someone in corporate will say, "It's too dark. It's so 2019. I propose we overhaul every store and drench them with saturated red so everyone associates our brand with raw meat and slapped cheeks."