Two pieces of mail today. One is a credit card offer targeting students and the other is from a funeral home. One thinks I’m a teenager, the other assumes that I have five toes in the hole.
I pitch the credit card promotion as it’s too inane to contemplate. Cards pushed into the hands of irresponsible college students contributed to the credit bubble and taught them some lessons they could apply to tuition loan default and bring down Sallie Mae. Apparently employing a similar thought process, GM recently announced a return to aggressive financing to boost car sales. You mean, car loan defaults, don’t you? My cat knows that, if he gets burned by something, he doesn’t stick his nose in it again. And yet, he’s receiving no offers of executive positions in the financial or automotive fields.
I turn to the other promotion. After a night out with the boys, I’m feeling like I might be a candidate for their services. I’m curious to see their approach, anyway, because I did some consulting for a large cemetery in the past.
The headline teaser over a photo of a very distraught woman: “In a world that’s out of control it’s nice to know there’s still one thing you do control! (Look inside for details!)”
Right off the bat, at least one too many exclamation points for my taste, especially given the subject matter. And, if the world is in fact reeling out of control, it’s hard to imagine one thing nice enough to assuage my concern about that. Let’s open this puppy up and find out what that might be, as we are intended to do.
“Dear Friend,” We’re friends? I didn’t know that. “The world changed on September 11, 2001.” Oh I can’t wait to see how they connect the dots on this one. “Today, we experience wars in diverse places (unlike before 2001?), outrageously high gas prices (have you been to Starbucks?), the economy is in distress, skyrocketing food prices and families drifting apart.” Well then, why wait until I’m dead? With all that going on, I’ll just climb into the box, now.
The copy goes on to paint a gloom & doom scenario. Just what is nice enough to compensate for my world crumbling apart? It’s that I can pick my burial merchandise and cost. They give me control over that. So, why is it that I don’t feel any better about my precarious perch on the eve of destruction?
I must be missing something because the woman in the previous photograph is now sporting a wide smile in the one inside the brochure. Being able to select her own coffin has solved all her problems. Forget about war and economic ruin. I’ve got walnut!
Oh to be that easy to comfort.
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