"ACT NOW! OTHERWISE, DUE TO AN INCREASE IN MAILING COSTS, THIS WILL BE YOUR FINAL CATALOG!"
Hurray! And huzzah! And other celebratory words that begin with 'h'!
I read the notice in capital letters on the cover of the piece of junk mail, did an impromptu soft shoe routine and clicked my heels. Finally, finally, these people would stop sending me this darned catalog!
It was one of those places selling bits o' generic giftware then elevated to the level of Officially Tacky by embossing someone's name all over it.
Mugs "customized with the name of your choice!"...
Picture frames "personalized for the ones you love!"...
Shirts "emblazoned with the recipient's own name so they're easily identified by the cops in case they mysteriously go missing but are actually running away from your relationship for having absolutely no real imagination when it comes to gifting."
You can get Christmas ornaments that give your tree that me-oriented "wow" factor...
Dog bowls for dogs who can read...
Calculators in case you can neither add nor remember your name...
And clothing that grandmas give just to ensure Little Timmy gets a good dose of knuckles and pantsing on the playground. To toughen him up.
Heck, even Little Timmy's undershorts might be emblazoned with his name! The bullies can look back with nostalgia, years from now, on the kid whose tighty-whiteys they'd pulled over his head each recess. Remembering the name will be SO handy for the 10 year class reunion.
Yep! Many terrific options for gifting the person you didn't really want to give a gift to anyway!
And after several years of having never bought a single thing from this catalog and being too darned lazy to contact them and tell them to take a hike, these people were finally, of their own volition going to give up on me! It warmed the general cockle periphery of my heart.
But too soon I began to realize that they were fibbing to me, those Catalog People. I looked in my mail one day a month or so onward, and sadly read:
"NO, REALLY, JTHORSON! WE'RE TOTALLY SERIOUS! IF YOU DON'T ACT NOW, WE WILL HAVE TO TAKE YOU OFF OUR MAILING LIST!"
"Good!" I said again, still clinging to some vague glimmer of hope for the future. After a few weeks more passed catalog-free, I was feeling very glass-half-fullish about the situation. And then I spilled the glass:
"HEY, JTHORSON, WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY! OKAY, WE KNOW WHAT WE SAID EARLIER, THAT THAT WAS THE LAST ONE. BUT THIS IS THE LAST-LAST ONE. AND THEN THESE SUPER-NEAT PERSONALIZED GOODIES ARE GONE FOREVER! DON'T WAIT!"
I waited.
"TRUTH NOW, CROSS OUR FINGERS HOPE TO DIE, STICK A NEEDLE IN OUR EYE. THIS IS REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, HONEST INJUN, THE LAST CATALOG WE CAN SEND YOU UNLESS YOU PLACE AN ORDER!"
Um, yeah?
"OH COME ON ALREADY, JTHORSON! WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR FRIGGING PROBLEM? DON'T YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO COULD USE A PERSONALIZED PEN? BUSINESS CARDS? A TRAPPER-HOLDER SCHOOL BINDER IN A WIDE SELECTION OF FASHION COLORS?
DON'T YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS, JTHORSON? OR PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU?
NO, PROBABLY NOT, SINCE YOU'RE SO FREAKIN STUBBORN AND COLD THAT YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO ORDER SO MUCH AS A PACK OF THESE BEAUTIFUL PERSONALIZED POST-ITS FOR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING AND..."
Three weeks later.
"HI, JTHORSON-- WE'RE REALLY SORRY ABOUT WHAT WE SAID BEFORE ABOUT THE POST-ITS AND BEING COLD. THAT WAS HARSH AND WE DIDN'T REALLY MEAN IT. WE WERE JUST HURT AND ACTING OUT. SO HAVE THIS SHINY NEW CATALOG ON US, AND WE PROMISE ON OUR SAINTED MOTHERS' NAMES, WE WON'T SEND YOU ANY MORE AFTER THIS."
I'm considering changing my name to Conchita Escobar and moving to South America. Somewhere remote, I think-- possibly along the Amazon, where the mail service is good-and-spotty. I figure this way it should be at least a year before I exit my thatch-roofed hut and head to the river to rinse out a few things, only to see on my doorstep:
HOLA! SE ACUERDAN DE NOSTROS, CESCOBAR NATO JTHORSON?...
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