Like everyone else I am in the middle of buying presents, and like everyone else, I buy many of them online. Easy peasy right? Remember the little verse I wrote one year:
Dashing through the web, googling sites like mad
Cyber Monday's here again there's bargains to be had
Click click here, click click there, buy it all online
Amazon and Overstock, Christmas will be fine
Click click here, click click there, bought it all online
Christmas done and packed and shipped. Have a glass of wine!
Well, it's true it is easy buying things from websites, but then comes the kicker. Immediately after I have clicked PURCHASE I get an email thanking me for my purchase and then ASKING ME TO TAKE A BRIEF SURVEY!
From time to time I succumb to one of these that claim to be TWO QUESTION SURVEYS.
I answer the two questions. Yes, the website was easy to negotiate. Yes the item was just what I wanted. But before I can hit SEND I'm directed to another page with a gazillion questions on it.
Everyone sends me a survey. I book a hotel. Survey on how was my booking experience?
I stay at the hotel. How was my hotel experience?
I take my car in for service. Survey on how was my oil changing experience?
And if I don't answer they keep on sending the surveys.
What is next? I go into the baker's and after the assistant has handed me a loaf of freshly baked bread she says, "If I could just ask you a few questions about your experience here today."
Or I come out of church and the priest is waiting outside to ask whether he fulfilled all my expectations.
Will it come to spouse or partner handing one a survey after sex? And how was it for you on a scale of one to ten? ( Just kidding!)
Or how about that I turn the tables and survey you? How was I at my book signing today? (on a scale of 1-10) Did I smile enough? Were my jokes funny? ..
So that's one gripe.
Another is the whole matter of giving at holiday time. I give very generously all year. But every time I'm at the grocer's or Target the assistant asks "Would you like to give a dollar to the save the whales/children/redwoods/etc etc.
And when I say No Thank You she looks at me as if I'm an evil person.
Today it was the food bank. I am a year round star donor to the food bank. I get invited to their fund raising parties. An extra dollar means nothing to me but it is the principle of the thing. I come to a grocery store to buy groceries. I do not want to be tricked into giving something.
And when I do give in to my better nature and send money for Christmas cards that come from some obscure convent in the back of beyond what happens? I am deluged with cards/calendars/stickers from every convent in the universe. These Christian ladies SELL MY ADDRESS without a qualm.
I get dream catchers from every Indian school in the country because I once gave to one of them. It never ends.
So have I struck a nerve here? Or am I the only one who wants to shout Bah Humbug?
