Dear Mr. Walmart and Ms. Target...

I am writing you today on behalf of a class…the Working Mommies of the World. This class has been seriously overlooked in your stores although we are by far your largest customer base. Our lives consist of running to your store for one child’s diapers, only to return home and find our other child is out of diapers, and only to return home from that trip to start a load of laundry and discover there is but a drip of detergent left. And even when you think that 4 trips a day to your store would be enough, we will for sure arrive with our children at daycare the next morning to find a notice waiting for us that our child is out of wipes, diapers, and formula.

We are the ones who run over our lunch hour to grab a single container of baby wipes only to get stuck behind the person who found a sale on Banquet meals and so decided to buy out the entire freezer case. We are the ones who shop with our children at night, during the times they are the most crabby and hungry because if we leave them with their fathers they will proceed to throw a fit because we are going without them.

On behalf of this class, I propose you create “The Mommy Lane”. Before you say it, your Express Lanes do not help us, because us Mommies are always the ones that have 13 items instead of 12.

In the Mommy Lane, items should magically be rung up without stopping for price checks. We should get the discounted price even if we don’t have time to cut out coupons, and the cashiers are not allowed to ask us “How are you today?” while our 4 year old is throwing a fit because she didn’t get a Barbie and our 2 year old is knocking down all of the Chapsticks you have lined up by the checkout.

In addition, we ask that items cost what they actually do. For some reason we cannot get out of your store for less than $50.00 no matter how hard we try. Even if we are going for one item…our bill will be over $50.00, regardless of your rollbacks or discounts.

And one more thing: please kindly remove all candy and toys from the Mommy Lane. We’re on to that trick already. It’s amazing how our bills jump about $10.00 each trip from M & M’s, candy with little fans on top, Pez Dispensers, and small pocket princesses. We know you have figured out that our 2 year olds are going to throw a fit while waiting in line and the only thing that will appease them are the $2.50 Buzz Lightyear Yo-Yo’s you have conveniently placed on the bottom shelf. You may, however, continue to place magazines and soda in the Mommy lane, so we can get our caffeine fix, find out whose baby Jennifer Aniston is having now, and discover how to lose 10 pounds in 5 minutes while eating a gallon of ice cream.

On behalf of your friends and loyal supporters,

Mandi