A request

To: Robert Ulrich, CEO, Target Corporation
From: Shelah the blogger, Target Shopper Extraordinaire

Target is my happy place. And just like I feel endorphins being released into my bloodstream when I eat chocolate or run, I feel a surge of pleasure when I turn into the parking lot-- even when it's to run in for something as inconsequential as the corn tortillas I forgot when I went shopping last week. In fact, I love the store so much that I'll often find myself strolling happily up and down the aisles, looking for cheap cool stuff. And often, like today, I'll walk out with not only the corn tortillas, but $74.32 of other necessities.

So you've hooked me, the thirtysomething mom with the minivan. But I'm afraid that in recent months, you've alienated an even more important clientele: my children.

I'm positive that, as the CEO of a major retail chain, you understand the importance of marketing to children. In fact, I see evidence of it all around your store: the Kelly dolls and action figures located 2-1/2 feet off the ground in the check-out aisle, the juice with the Elmo heads placed strategically next to the generic apple juice, the huge displays of sugary Princess cereal. But my kids beg to buy groceries at our local Super Target because of the promise of the free cookie.

Undoubtedly you've seen the poster at the bakery which advertises free cookies for children to munch on while they shop. It shows a plate chock-full of beautifully frosted, carefully sprinkled delights. Before our recent move, the cookies we got at Target almost always resembled the cookies on the ad: messy and sugary and utterly wonderful for little kids. The bakery ladies always handed them over with a smile, patted the kids on the head, and said, "be good for your mommy!"

But at our new Target, the cookies are often nowhere to be found. The bakery ladies (who don't speak English, not that there's anything wrong with that) always look at me and shrug their shoulders when I ask about the cookies. Sometimes they'll point at the free samples, which are invariably tiny and broken (oh, the horrors!) always contain large peanuts or raisins (great choices for preschoolers, by the way). Often there are no bakery workers and no cookies, which means that I can placate the easygoing baby with a sample of baguette, but the strong-willed preschooler and the even-stronger-willed kindergartener spend the rest of the shopping trip loudly lamenting their sugarless existence, often flopping to the floor as if experiencing a hypoglycemic attack.

And as much as I love Target, I'm not sure that I can take the unpredictible cookie situation any longer. My negative, visceral reaction to Wal-Mart is even stronger than my positive reaction to Target, but at least my kids don't go there expecting cookies. They don't flop down in the aisles because the floors are too dirty. Their screams are drowned out by the din of the teeming masses at Wal-Mart, but at Target, in its squeaky clean, brightly lit, calming atmosphere, the wild bansheeness of my cookieless children stands out even more.

I want to remain a happy, satisfied Target customer, but in the words of the immortal Cookie Monster, "ME NEED COOKIE!" (chocolate chip or sugar with flourescent frosting preferred)

--originally published 2/1/06