measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mall-avoidance byproducts In one corner of my father's den, there is a pile. The pile's been there for years, and alters in height from time to time, but the content has stayed fairly constant for about the past ten years or so. At first glance, one might assume this is a pile of medical journals, just stacked up for reading or reference on the floor. After all, it's a doctor's home office. Why not? But upon further observation, one will see that this is not a stack of journals, but of catalogs. Mail-order catalogs. Dozens, if not hundreds of them, stacking upon each other and adding weight to the point that the slick paper from one stapled booklet sticks to another. During college breaks, my father would get this pile, put it in a cardboard box, hand it to me, and smile. It was my job to go through and weed out all but the most recent catalogue of each type. I'm convinced he just let them rot all year to give me something to do. Especially since I'm convinced that the ones I finally came up with as the finished pile seemed to be the bottom of the following break's pile. (I haven't been home in two years-- I'm terrified of what he's going to present during my next visit.) But nevertheless, I did it over sodas and watching Indiana Jones movies for the umpteenth time. It often took me longer than expected because I'd start browsing some of the ones I found interesting. My father gained this pile through that odd "new" trend of the 1990's to buy everything for the holidays from the comfort of the home. Dad never really had the time to go out to the mall during the holidays, nor did he really have the desire to go deal with the mall during said holidays. So he'd go through catalogues with yellow stickies and mark pages of things that he found interesting and order stuff. And by doing so, he would get... more catalogues. I never quite understood how this phenomenon occurred, and how one order would quadruple the amount of catalogues coming to the house. After all, I was ordering address labels through the mail throughout high school for penpalling and swapping, and the only extra catalogue I used to get was that stupid Fingerhut catalogue. Anytime I order labels now, that Fingerhut catalogue shows up. And out of the principle of not wanting to order stuff from a company called "Fingerhut," I throw it in the trash. But all of a sudden, I'm seeing the first glimpses of catalogue hell, and understanding how it happens. It purely depends on which catalogue you order from... or in my case, a website. Because all of a sudden, it's starting to happen to me. In early November, I ordered some address labels online through Colorful Images. With all of my penpalling and swapping, I go through address labels quite quickly for my post office box, and I get sick of seeing white Avery labels after signing a couple hundred friendship books... so for the outside of my envelopes, I like to have something *nice*. I'm girly when it comes to labels-- kitties, flowers, that kind of thing. I like cute stuff. So I ordered three sets of labels. And since I didn't know what method of shipping they use, I had them sent here at work, because UPS is hellish in an apartment building in the city. Got the labels... and a couple weeks later, I got the newest catalogue from Colorful Images, which was both expected and welcome. What was unexpected and slightly worrisome is the flurry of other catalogues from other companies that I've received since. About a half-dozen of them, and they seem to all be showing up in the past tenday or so. And yeah, some of the stuff in them is cute, but now I'm wary of buying anything (even something that I know my step-mother would LOVE) from them because I don't want to get MORE. Particularly at work. For this round, I'm hanging onto the catalogues. I know, based on the fact that they're all being sent to work, that my address has been sold to some sort of mailing list. I'm going to be contacting Colorful Images in March, once this sales-quarter go-around has completed, and demand that they take me off of any lists, because I *know* they're doing this. But I finally understand why my dad got in such a pickle with these things. And I think from now on, I'm going to go to the mall to get things, or buy labels from the company that only sells my address to the damn Fingerhut catalogue. --Mel. 2:51 p.m. - 28 January 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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