Dear Hallmark, Target, Barnes and Noble and all the rest:
Please accept this letter as my notice of resignation, effective immediately.
This was an easy decision to make. I have spent too many of my years mindlessly wandering malls looking for the perfect gift for that special relative I see maybe one, maybe four, times a year. After very little consideration, I have decided to ignore your Black Friday sales, your Christmas specials, your post-Christmas blowouts and anything else associated with the season. Why? Let me count the reasons:
- The hundreds of “valued customer” emails I receive that are obviously cranked out by some mindless computer with no special thought that I now have to sift through.
- The mindless idiots who hold up thirty cars waiting for one parking spot to open up when another spot two cars earlier would have been much faster for everyone involved.
- The throngs of shoppers who go as a group and use blocking aisles as a social event for themselves.
- The extremely narrow aisles at stores that just aggravate #3, above.
- The store managers who place interesting items at the end of these narrow aisles so #3 and #4 are more likely to occur.
- The other store managers who don’t manage checkout properly so standing in the wrong line is a penalty. (Bed, Bath and Beyond, I’m talking about you.)
- The seasonal employees who offer to help, but then when asked a simple question respond with “Let me go check with my manager.”
- The [bleeping] teenager on her cell phone who didn’t notice my car and narrowly avoided hitting me, and whose slamming on the brakes scared the [bleep] out of everyone behind her.
- The other [bleeping] teenager on her phone who did hit someone while backing out of her parking space!
- The many Goodwill, Teen Rescue and others who further block and mug shoppers trying to get in and out of stores.
- The traffic.
- The stress of unrealistic expectations.
- And I’ll say it, some of the oft-repeated Christmas music barely qualifies as music. It’s so bad it deserves a place on the Gong Show.
So there you have it – A baker’s dozen reasons why I no longer want to play. Call me a Grinch - I might actually be proud of it – But I’m sitting the next one out. And the one after that. And so on. I quit and there’s no amount of money or perks that will get me to reconsider.
Any questions?