Rebates...Re-HATES

Do you guys remember the days when making a SIMPLE purchase at a cash register was quick, easy, and PAINLESS?

Well, not anymore.

Corporate "tracking" and rebate programs have made my life completely miserable - and because I have VERY little patience - I hesitate to inquire on a pack of goddamn chewing gum - for fear that they might ask me for my ZIP CODE...

Companies love trying to get you to make a purchase based upon a REBATE discount. Comfortable that most people will tear long strips of FLESH off their own FACE with their fingernails - long before they summon the patience and sanity together to gather the paperwork to file a MAIL-IN rebate.

Recently, I went to the store to buy a pair of Bose headphones. A fairly common and painless purchase for any HUMAN BEING with an i-pod or a cell phone.

I thought nothing of it...

Needless to say - checking out at the REGISTER was just about as fun as enlisting in the ARMY...


Employee: "Hi. How are you today?"

Me: "I'm fine, Thanks. How are you?"

Employee: "Good. Did you find everything you were looking for?"

Me: "Yep. No problem."

Employee: "OK. Great. Do you have a Best Buy points Card?"

Me: "Yes - but I don't have it with me today..."

Employee: "Ok. No problem. I can search for it in the computer. Whats your last name?"

Me: "Post. P-O-S-T.

Employee: "PROST?"

Me: "No. POST - 'P' as in PETER. O. S. 'T' as in TOM - POST."

Employee: "First name?"

Me: "John. J-O-H-N."

Employee: "John Post?"

Me: "Yes."

Employee: "425 Robin Road Harrisburg, PA?"

Me: "No."

Employee: "Ok. How about 1133..."

Me: "Yes. That's it."

Employee: "Ok. Do you have a Best Buy charge card?"

Me: "Nah."

Employee: "Do you want one? - It's good for 10% off on all purchases today?"

Me: "Nah. I'm good - I don't really have the time today. Thanks though."

Employee: "Ok. No problem. Will this be cash, or charge?"

Me: "Cash."

Employee: "Great - Whats your zip code?"

Me: "19610."

Employee: "Ok. Your total is $101.40."

Me: "Ok - Cool. I think I have $.40...hold on let me check."

Employee: "No problem. Did you know that for an extra $40, Best Buy offers a replacement program that will cover and insure any defects with this product for up to 2 years? Is this something you might be interested in?"

Me: "No, I didn't know that - and no, I'm not really interested in that today. Thanks though."

Employee: "Ok. Well there is a $5 mail in rebate available on this product. When you open the package - read the information and long onto the website, fill out the online form - including the model number, which Best Buy you made the purchase and today's date - and submit your information."

Me: "Ok. Ill be SURE to do that as soon as I get home. Hell - I might even do it from the PARKING lot on my BlackBerry."

Employee: "Ok. Well there is also a special on this product today - you're in luck. For a limited time, you can buy the extra moldings for your ear cavity for $10.99. Normally, they are $12.99. Is this something you might be interested with?"

Me: "No. I'm only interested in buying these headphones - and besides I have to go DONATE BLOOD, and Im running late - so please, just give me the product I want, and leave me alone."

Employee: "Ok. Should I put the receipt in the bag?"

Me: "Yes. I thought you were never going to ask me that. That would be GREAT."

Employee: "In order for us to serve you better - there is a survey on the back of the receipt. Please take a minute and call the 800 number on there - and tell us how I did today. That would be a great help...and its good for $5 off your next purchase."

Me: "Is that it? Because I can now feel my teeth starting to ROT out of my head since I have started to talk with you today - on what I was expecting to be an easy purchase."

Employee: "Yes. That is it. Have a nice day. - Show the receipt to the security manager on your way out."

Wow - That very well could have been the worst day of my life. I have never been a proponent of internet shopping, but now I am starting to change my mind.


Look, you guys are all savvy, so there's no need to remind you to never buy anything because it is on rebate.

Don't even factor a rebate into your purchasing equation: 10 times out of 10, rebates are ANNOYING and frustrating.

What ever happened to... "Give me what I am buying - with the receipt in the bag. Have a nice day. K, Thanks...?"

CrackBook

Recently, I've started to realize something...

Facebook is constantly up on my computer, and the area on my computer screen where the Facebook "HOME" button resides, is officially worn out like the heel on an old PENNY LOAFER.

In a way, I'm embarrassed.

Somehow or another, I have become a HELPLESS victim of the frantic obsession with these online networking sites, and while the craze hasn't warped into my blackberry...yet, I enjoy reading about many of my long-lost friends through my laptop computer.

The great thing about Facebook is that it's FREE, and consequently; I am not PAWNING my prized possessions to access the information that coincides with my five hundred and some-odd friends. I simply log in, click home, and I am INSTANTLY plugged into the lives of just about EVERYONE I know.

No credit cards, no interest rates, and no contractual obligations.

But whats too much, I ask?

While I admit to being a facebook FIEND, I don't understand why people find it necessary to log their every MOVE for the whole world to see.

And more importantly, I seriously wish that people would either join the MAFIA, be a FARMER, buy a FISHTANK, marry a PIRATE, or kill a VAMPIRE, - so I don't have to HEAR about it.

I do, however, partake in a MILD array of status updates that include certain athletic outcomes, jokes, trip destinations, etc., but some people take this WAY to far.

(Before you read any further, my intention here is not to piss anyone off. These are the views of a 29 year old, SINGLE, male. So, if you are offended, I apologize in advance for the narrow-mindedness)

For example:

"_________is waiting for her hubby to come and share some of the chocolate lava cake she just made for him.”

I think everyone has a few friends like these. The person who was voted the “most intellectual” by the high school senior class is now a full time housewife who uses the term “HUBBY” without reservation, - and wants the ENTIRE Facebook community to know that she is spending her Friday night...making DUDE a cake.


*Let me just go on record NOW. I hope that I am NEVER referred to as a "hubby." When I hear this word in a sentence, its all I can do...to not DRY HEAVE.*


The best is when your friends brag about exercise.


“__________is glad that he didn’t eat the box of Girl Scout cookies instead of going to the gym and doing 3 sets of 30 bicep crunches.”

Thanks for SHARING about how many reps you did. We were all so very interested about your regimented work out plan. It’s good to know so many productive members of our nation are busy keeping trim, - and telling the world about it. Maybe next week, they will have done 80 chin ups, 3000 sit ups, and then ROW themselves into a QUADRATHALON.

Here's a good one too:

“__________is madly in love with his wife...even the day after Valentine’s!”

Great.

I'm really glad that you have found love. For real, I am. But either your wife is so incredibly LAME as to be impressed by the fact that you say things like this about her to the whole wide world, or you have some kind of bizarre INADEQUACY, - requiring you to BROADCAST signs of heterosexual HARMONY to the Universe. Maybe both.

I’m thinking both.

These kinds of 7th-grade declarations of AFFECTION for someone you’re married to can only be compared with those (sometimes overlapping) groups of Facebookers who actually write vapid messages to their spouses on each others’ walls...

“Honey, I’m getting some TAPIOCA at the store on the way home! And I just wanted to tell you Good Luck at the interview honey!...“I love you!”

There are a lot of these. OBVIOUSLY, as a 20-something year-old male, a lot of my friends are getting married and making babies. Does this really need to be shared with the entire world?

You made a fucking baby. Wow. This happens almost a billion times a year on the planet EARTH. (I'm only kidding. I understand that child-birth is exciting, I'm only executing one of my "signature" rants) While I’m sure the endless PARADE of baby pictures is a Facebook staple, I’m happy to report that I have managed to avoid most of these albums.

"I’m changing diapers!" Let me go make a status update change!

Once kids are born, you get into this sort of thing. I wouldn't know because I'm single. Thanks to the never ending supply of information, Facebook users will also get to share in their custody battles as well. How nice is it that we get to be DEPRESSED about the bizarre neuroses of your child as he is developing? In 10 years, I will be looking FORWARD to the status updates about your court dates as well. Believe me, I am taking notes.


Facebook and social networking culture take people that you happen to have met somewhere, sometime in your life, and label them for you.

Fell out of touch? Catch up on what you’ve missed. Didn’t know them that well to begin with? They’re just one click away! Look, they’re online now! Maybe you can hit them up real quick while they’re STALKING their other friends and ask them what it was like to grow up in whatever town they’re from.

On the flip-side, what has made me so attracted to this site is the ability to stay connected to people you thought you would NEVER see again. It's especially sweet to re-connect you with old friends from college.

Pre-Facebook, when you graduated, you moved onto live the rest of your life, with no intentions of EVER seeing the friends you made while taking a leak outside the late-night nitrous party at 5am.

Not now.

Online networking services have bridged the gap between acquaintances we have ALL made throughout life, both good and bad, and guess what?

I'm a "fan."

DEPRESSEDUARY

Winter is the time of year where every other living thing either chooses to die or HIDE, but for some reason, human beings choose to put on a giant coat, CHAINS on their tires, as well as EARMUFFS - and POWER through it.

It's miserable.

The sun goes down at 3:30 p.m. and rises at 7:00 a.m., making the days invariably short and almost unbearable. For me, the months of January and February always make me feel like my dog just DIED.

This is due, in part, to the chemical changes within the body that are a result of a lack of sunlight. You see, sunlight and UV-Rays naturally produce hormones within the human body that generate happiness, and as a result - you feel HEALTHY.

Without sunlight, one can appropriately imagine that without these hormones being produced, you unequivocally feel like a SHIT STAIN.

On a graph of coolness, winter follows along the same exact curve as making a t-shirt with a super magnified FACE SHOT of your "ex" on it...

It makes you SICK every time you think about it.

It's safe to say that the worst part of my day comes in the morning, seconds after I turn the HOT water off in the shower and I step out, into what feels like SIBERIA. It is at that very moment when my testicles shrivel up into the size of cherry tomatoes, and my desire to do ANYTHING else other than douse myself in a 55 gallon drum of KEROSENE and proceed to light up my morning smoke, becomes non-existent.

And I know that I'm not the only one who HATES this time of year.

Currently, the Nation is experiencing ALL-TIME temperature lows and snow accumulation, especially throughout the Northeast. In FLORIDA there is a STATE OF EMERGENCY for Christs sakes, as the citrus crops are in danger of freezing, and there is worry that the sub-normal temperatures are going to inundate the crop supply, which is a multi-billion dollar staple.

Right now it is so cold outside, even PROSTITUTES are experiencing the downtrodden effects of DEPRESSEDUARY. Get this: Yesterday, on my way to the grocery store, I saw HOOKERS downtown charging 20 bucks just to BLOW...

on your hands.

Other than relocating to a warmer region (which SEVERAL of my friends seemed to have done lately), there is no solution. On one hand, I do enjoy the seasonal change that exists here in the Northeast region, and on the other hand I hate the "jail" that my house becomes during these months.

Which brings me to my next question: Where do all the girls go in the winter time?

As if the whole shower experience isn't bad enough(sorry for the mental picture), there is NO such thing as "eye candy" during these awful months. Why? Because everyone (especially HOT girls) finds it so much easier to stay in the comfort of their home at night, making the possibility of a new relationship forming almost EXTINCT.

That being said, its also probably a safe assumption that people have less sex in the winter. (However, due to the amount of birthdays I've recently seen in October, and November, I now know that this is NOT true.) If this were true, this idea alone would be enough to make you DROP KICK the head off of the next snowman you see, and FIRE your snow sled up inside your wood burning stove.

It's not just SHRINKAGE and treacherous weather that's keeping us from getting any action during the winter months. Chicks get considerably less sexual as the days grow shorter and the temperature drops. They stop worrying about fitting into their swimsuits - let alone WEARING one, they start eating like pigs, and let their leg hair grow until it's long enough to CORNROW. This all stems from one very simple fact: they know that they have EXACTLY three months to cover every single piece of exposed skin on their body like an INUIT blubber harvester.

Ughh. It's going to be a long 3 months.

I'm over it. I'm going to patent a pill that makes you feel like you are in Hawaii year round.


So, If you're one of the millions of people who live in a climate that actually has a winter season and HATE it, dont worry. Your not the only one.