Finding a very difference comfort zone
For the comfort of those who receive too much junk mail…
As one of those unique people who has a mailing address, I frequently receive the kind of mail marked with crafty phrases intended to make me feel either blessed by the company's attention or guilty for not accepting their offers with the appropriate measures of gratitude and humility.
Envelopes from the more aggressive unsolicited mail sources - financial institutions, credit-card companies or fund-raising organizations - are often stamped with an assortment of messages. These include such time-honored gems as:
- "Dated Material: Open Immediately" splayed diagonally across the envelope in bold and obnoxious type. This is obviously meant to give you a sense of unease, a slight twinge of fear that what's inside is an offer so absolutely life-changing that to let it expire would be a mistake of the utmost magnitude.
- "Account Information Enclosed" is usually typed out in modest little letters as if this is some real important business-type correspondence you've got here. It's almost always a bunch of checks offered for use by anyone with a $10 balance in their bank account. The "information" part of the phrase goes curiously unaddressed, unless you count the fine print telling you that you are about to enter into a state of enormous debt at astounding interest rates.
- "The Favor of a Reply is Requested" is a clever little entreaty that brings to mind invitations to weddings or parties, where you are not asked to contribute anything to the event except perhaps your famous potato salad.
The reply is usually requested from a nonprofit organization. I understand that they're usually perfectly legitimate and doing good things for the world, but it seems unnecessarily sneaky to make you feel that you are bending the rules of society if you throw away their exclusive invitation to contribute to their cause.
Envelopes stamped with one of these phrases arrive in the mail quite regularly. What I don't run into quite so often in the way of public relations slyness is the sign I saw just this week on the doors of the Dairy Queen bathrooms in Cardston, Alberta.
"For the comfort and convenience of our customers, THESE RESTROOMS ARE LOCKED."
Comfort? I was never aware that this is what people are searching for in the bathroom of your average fast-food restaurant. Perhaps it is better found in the hall outside of the bathroom, as that is where you have to stay when faced with an impenetrable locked metal door.
But this is where the convenience part comes in. To gain access to the aforementioned comfort, you walk back up to the front of the restaurant and ask the counterpeople how it is one gets into the bathroom.
One particularly eager young employee, obviously tired of hearing this question, will spew out a bunch of numbers, revealing the top-secret codes to the men's and women's rooms, though he is reticent to tell you what set of numbers match what gender of bathroom.
After a few tries you manage to punch in the secret code and open the women's room door, but meanwhile your son will be desperately trying to figure out why the men's room code won't work (it's been a long drive, after all). Your husband also will be unable to enter the den of comfort and convenience with the given code.
So after another visit to the counter, another employee with a slightly better memory for numbers will relay the CORRECT code to the men's room. Open sesame, and they're in.
The world would be a better place if your average solicitor would take a cue from the Cardston Dairy Queen and put something along these lines on the outside of their correspondence:
"For the comfort and convenience of those on our mailing list, THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS ENVELOPE THAT COULD POSSIBLY INTEREST YOU."
Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com