Letter to a Toy Merchant

Dear Toy Merchant,

Why, oh why, would you send a toy purchased online during the weekend after Thanksgiving to a home in its original packaging instead of the traditional brown shipping box? Could you not fathom that perhaps the purchase, bought during the most popular holiday shopping weekend of the year, might possibly be a gift for a child at the designated shipping address?

It happens, you know.

People buy items online and ship them to their home and use them for gifts! Really!

Do you know what happens when a child residing at said home sees the undisguised toy box on his front porch?

Let me just tell you.

The child wants the toy. Now. The child pesters his poor, tired mother for the rest of the night about that damn toy. "What was it? Who is it for? Where is it? Can I play with it?" On and on and on...

It is even worse when the toy in question was going to be a gift from the big man in RED.

Yeah. That can't happen now. How is mommy going to explain why Santa left a toy for Christmas that they already got in the mail? She can't, especially when the boy is 5 and has a memory like a computer chip.

So thank you, toy merchant. Thanks a LOT. You have made my life just a little bit more complicated.

Your disgruntled customer,
Stacie

P.S. You suck.

My Opinion May Count...Somewhere

I just got an email saying that we could (will probably) be joining the Niel.sen's Home.scan Con.sumer Pan.el. We get a hand held scanner to use for scanning the bar codes on all of our purchases. (that part excites Is.aac) Then once a week we'll send the info into the Niel.sen company so manufacturers and retailers can decide what products to make and sell. I'm am excited about this because we’ll earn gift points that are redeemable for merchandise as well as entries into the companies' sweepstakes. I get all loopy when someone offers me something for free. :-)

Now, I don't know how much of a pain in the rear end it will be to actually scan the bar codes of everything we buy. The good thing is that we don't get out of the house enough to really do a whole of shopping other than for groceries. (Hm, I wonder if they'll judge me for all the Pep.si and Ding Dongs I buy? I mustn't think about that or I 'd be tempted to go all healthy! Ha!) If it is too difficult to maintain, then we'll just stop participating.

Doesn't this sound kind of cool?