WINNIPEG – Sears Canada has announced plans to close down all operations, leaving the nation’s mothers at a loss for a place to purchase you irregularly sized sweaters, marked-down belts, and ill-fitting pants.

“Where else am I going to find a place to buy 2 for 1 dress shirts that have a million sharp little pins in them,” asked Paulette Murphy outside the recently shuttered Kildonan Place Sears Outlet. In addition to putting its 12,000 store employees out of work, the retail chain’s closure is estimated to leave Canada’s 41,700 mothers without a location to purchase clothes that they just thought would look sharp on you.

Reports have surfaced of mothers across Canada forming their own “returns lines” in abandoned Sears parking lots. Whether driven by mourning or pure instinct, moms nationwide have brought tattered receipts and clothing for return as they form orderly lines to nothing. One such grieving mother, Eileen Sadler, 55, stared forlornly at a bag of unworn shirts.

“I bought 6 different ugly polo shirts for you to choose from at Thanksgiving, but now how will I return the ones that are too hideous for you to even pretend you’ll wear,” mused the worried mother of three.

Also expressing concern are the nation’s sons and daughters, who will no longer be the recipients of awkwardly stitched Sears apparel purchased by their mothers. “At first I was like, ‘Yay, no more clothes from Sears’,” said Andrew Marks, a 27-year-old systems analyst. “But then I realized, what awful store is mom gonna find now to compulsively shop for me at? Marshalls? Winners? Some creepy holdout Zellers location that refuses to die?”

At press time, the nation’s mothers are still wondering whether you tried on those impossibly baggy khakis to see if they fit.