Warning: Do not order things for your 94+ year old grandma from catalogs. It will come back to haunt you.
My grandma has always done a lot of catalog shopping, or at least she has in the 38 years I have been around. I can recall there always being a Harriet Carter catalog lying around somewhere; she loves to try out their handy household gadgets. She likes to order clothes and shoes from Old Pueblo Traders. Grandma was the queen of As-Seen-On-TV gadgets before they were popular; only she didn't see them on TV, she saw them in a catalog.
These companies are solid on their marketing ploy, by the way. You order out of one, and three others get your name and address. Soon your mailbox is full! And the senior citizen who doesn't like to go out and about shopping (and doesn't surf the net) has everything imaginable at their fingertips. This is the equivalent of online shopping for the elderly!
My mistake in all of this, and the reason for the post...my mom usually orders the items for grandma. It takes forever. The order form is filled out, the check is enclosed and off it goes via the postal service. Six weeks later, the item arrives. I'm a victim of the I-want-it-now generation and ordering the items online is so much quicker. You place the order, fill in the address and billing information and you receive the item (if it's not back-ordered for 8 weeks like heel lifts...true story) within 10 days. It's quick and easy.
The drawback...I am now on their mailing list, and that is not a good thing. Yesterday I received two catalogs, the day before one. I'm not a fan of junk mail anyway, and believe me, folks, this is junk mail. In the trash they go. They also retained my email address and those online offers flood my inbox...although the other day, I got smart and 'unsubscribed' to their solicitations. Ahh.
The other problem with these catalogs...their content. Heaven help me, one day as I was placing an order (for the heel lifts that are back ordered forever), I flipped through the pages and saw some things that were quite disturbing. As in, they do not conjure up images I want to have...ever. Knowing these catalogs are targeted for the elderly and seeing certain items for sale, ugh, it's nasty. Not only that, I felt totally disgusting having the catalog and felt like I had to shred it before someone saw that I had a 'dirty' magazine. (Sorry if you're eating your lunch or breakfast.) Just another reason they immediately hit the trash can when I check the mail.
Needless to say, I will be investigating how to remove myself from these mailing lists. I don't mind ordering things for grandma (I know how she loves her heel lifts), but I may have to go back to doing it the old fashioned way.
1 comment:
hehehehehe
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