It's Not You, It's Me

Dearest Target:

It brings me great pain to have to write this letter to you. I would have preferred to do it in person, but I couldn’t be sure that I would be able to contain my emotions, or my wallet.

We have to break-up.

It’s not you.

It’s me.

I just can’t restrain myself when I’m around you and my empty promises to behave and control myself will only further hurt my family.

You see, my husband lost his job yesterday, a job that afforded me the luxury of walking into your open aisles and stocking my cart with random “necessities” that made my serotonin levels skyrocket. You were always the icing on the shopping cake, my favorite stop, my paradise. Do you remember that Saturday morning, back in June of 2007, when I came in for paper towels and cat food and left with new panties and silver hoop earrings? Or the fall of 08, when an otherwise mundane shopping list began to take on new life as I gently placed those glass pumpkin spice candles into my cart? Oh! And my favorite, our amazing Day After Christmas tradition, those yummy snowman towels, the tree skirt, those beautiful discounted ornaments!

You have been a remarkable friend, always accepting returned gifts and forgiving buyer’s remose.

I don’t know when we will meet again. But for now I forbid myself from looking in your direction, for fear that I may lose my willpower and give in to your tempting ways. You will hear through the grapevine that I have moved on, and this, my darling is true. I have surrendered myself in the midst of this financial crisis, and tearfully run into the far less attractive arms of your greatest foe.

Yes.
My shopping list now belongs to Walmart.

Shhhhhhh. It will be okay.

Someday we will meet again.

And it will be beautiful.