An Open Letter

Dear Target,

You used to be my Mecca, my Nirvana, my haven of easy finds and great sales. That has come to an end. At first, it was just one or two things that disappeared. I could no longer find a great purse that someone my age could get away with. Then all your shoes grew their heels super high and I could no longer wear them. These things I found elsewhere, while I would still glance through those aisle in hopes that maybe things had gone back to what they were. To no avail. Then other thing started disappearing from your shelves. Curling irons, this didn’t matter until I needed one. Then my face powder, then my eyeliner. And hairspray. And shampoo. And gel. I was forced to find these items from other merchants. This brought me no joy. My complete beauty routine had vanished from your well lite aisles. Save for one last piece, my hair coloring product. I could easily pluck my new found color from the bright aisle of yellow and green boxes. Until now. Now, nothing. Every color BUT mine. I check the manufacture’s website, they still make my Sweet Latte’, Dark Beige Blonde. #72. You just don’t seem to carry it.

What is the deal Target?? Why have all my shades and colorings gone from your walls? F thinks I’m crazy when once in a while I actually FIND my shade of face powder and I BUY THEM ALL. Yes, 3 or 4 of them at a time. This is how extremely rare these finds are. I’ve completely given up on my eyeliner.

Why do you deny me? Do you want me to not feel somewhat pretty? Or is my coloring just that popular that you can’t keep it stocked?? Small thing I actually remember from my horrid semester in Econ, SUPPLY and DEMAND. Your supply is not meeting my DEMAND.

Please rectify this IMEDIATELY.

I miss you.

But I am terribly upset and disappointed with you.



Discolored,



Devil’s Heaven

Open Letter

Dear Mother Nature,

Pray tell, was it really necessary to open up the heavens in Noah's Ark proportions and rain DIRECTLY into my window whilst I was trying to order my lunch? I had to open my umbrella in my car and I still got soaked. Yes, you read that right, I had my UMBRELLA opened in MY CAR.
There are so many things wrong with that.
 Including what you did to my pants and the inside of my car.

My pant leg. Yes, that pinkish color IS MY LEG showing through the light tan Capri's I had on.

My driver's side door. The light color is the dry bits.

There was standing water in the little hand hold hole there. Yeah.

Please refrain from raining INTO my window while ordering my lunch. It is bad manners.

One Click Only Please

Dear BING! search engine,

Um, I hate you. I click on one link and instead of going directly to the story indicated it takes me to your search engine where there are 20 billion links for the same story from 20 billion different sources. I do not care for this at all. Please just take me to the story you indicated so that I may read it, and possibly share it via my Face Book page. If I want to do further research at a later date I will, but being forced to hunt and pick through all the listings is NOT COOL.

Please rectify this immediately.

Sincerely,
DH

Cable Jacking

Dear Neighbor P who lives behind us,

Over the last few years I'v come to realize that your berry tree has been resting heavily on our garage and, more recently, I believe said berry tree was feeding our rat problem. Yesterday I was completely involved in watching MIB II when the picture completely froze and I could not get it off my screen. I sadly turned the TV off and went about my day.  When F arrived home he plopped down to drool over watch the FIFA Cup.
"What's wrong with the TV??"
"I don't know, it froze on me earlier today."
We took turns turning the TV off and on, unplugging things and eventually got the AT&T shit done be f'd up Orange screen.  Giving over to the fact that we were now cable less, I headed outside to read "Gone With The Wind". While rearranging my anti-gravity chair (LOVE) I noticed that a tree was missing. I called upon F to confirm my findings.
He confirmed.
On closer inspection we found that you apparently had been doing some tree trimming during the day. I am most happy to no longer have your berry tree co-mingling with my garage roof. I thank you for that.
However, what I do not appreciate is the cable line that is now dangling in my yard begging F to touch it.  This also leads to the fact that, um, we DO NOT HAVE CABLE. I cannot express my dismay enough at the fact that you failed to inform us of this great tragedy. Your Tree Guy called the electrical people. It is NOT their issue. It is AT&T's issue. I wish you had left us a note (the other neighbors informed us of what had happened) so I could have prepared F for the despair he was about to feel about not being able to watch the FIFA Cup. F had to call AT&T and play dumb about why the cable wasn't working and now we are must wait for AT&T to come and discover that their cable line has been cut. This is NOT COOL.
In the future PLEASE be more considerate when disabling some one's lifeblood entertainment device. A little head's up would have been nice.

Your Neighbor,
Devil's Heaven

I Call It Soccer

Dear 2010 FIFA World Cup Championship,

 I would like my husband back now please. I am done watching him be hypnotized by the brightly colored soccer(football) uniforms. He sits like a lump in front of the TV and barely recognizes me through his daze. I think I even saw him drool a little the other night.
Also, FIFA broadcasting networks, those horns, the vuvuzela horn, I realize it is a part of the African soccer (football) culture, but seriously, every night I duck and hide thinking somehow a swarm of killer bees (African killer bees? do i see a connection???) has found its way into my home. Maybe at least tone it down a little? Is that too much to ask? 
I know America is considered a wee baby when it comes to playing soccer (football), and F just rolls his eyes at me, because after all, in his HOMELAND soccer (football) was a huge thing, but for me, eh, whatever. But I pretty feel that way about most sports. Take or leave, no big.

So FIFA, when will you be over?? Soon I hope? Please??

Thank you so much,

Devil's Heaven.

P.S. The players are HOTT, I'll give you that. Serious YUM factor.

STOP IT Already, DAMN

Dear TV Producers,


It really bothers me that you have made Jack into a softie. The death toll this year on 24 is WOEFULLY low. And let's do the math here, shall we?? Last season Jack's granddaughter was just a baby. But you lead us to believe that it has been AT LEAST six years because Renee was under cover SIX YEARS ago, so you keep mentioning. Then shouldn't said granddaughter be, oh, I don't know, SIX instead of like 3 or 4????? Seriously, I know I suck at math, but COME ON.

Also, the new CTU director? SUCKS. It is extremely hard for me to get past the stooping rolled shoulders of Bubba Gump Shrimp, but if I do indeed manage to look past that, omg, it is so hard to though, I come face to face with the fact that is his so extremely less than the late great Bill Buchanan. BB went rouge and started his OWN CTU, how damn sexy is THAT?? EXTREMELY. Bubba Gump Shrimp? He can't even keep track of his top data person! Seriously!!! Who goes missing from work for TWO HOURS during a GLOBAL CRISIS?!?!?!?!?! And his lame directive of "track her." DUDE!!! STAND UP STRAIGHT!!! GIVE AN ORDER!!!! Stop crackin on Chloe!!!! She's already saved your ass once!


To the Producers of LOST, I say, STOP FUCKING AROUND. This is the LAST season; you are supposed to be ANSWERING our questions, NOT bringing up NEW ONES. Who is the mother of Jack's snotty kid?? And when was he BORN??? Is Jacob REALLY a good guy??? Why don't the Others wear shoes?!?!?! Why did said Others STEAL all the children and WHERE are those kids now??

And let's be real, what TEENAGER in 2003 had an ANSWERING MACHINE????? SERIOUSLY????


Get your act together TV Producers.


I"ll be watching you.

Bill Gates, Why Do You Hate Me So?

Dear Mr. Gates,
I desperately need you to explain something to me. You are a great humanitarian. You have given away countless amounts of money. You have your own charitable foundation. And yet, you allow the continued torture of your Microsoft Office customers by your programmers. Why is this? Where is your humanitarian spirit when it comes to us? We have “upgraded” to Office 2007 ( I know, just in time for 2010 to come out, talk to our “fabulous” tech person.) and I can’t say I’m lovin it. In fact, I can’t say ANYONE in our office loves it. The “Ribbons”, even though they sound pretty, are in truth heinous. I’m sorry, but I must be honest with you on this one. In MS 2003 I cursed your name for not allowing more than 65,500+/- records in Excel. In my job I often deal with records upwards of 75K, into the 100K. I HATED having to cut my file into two. I was always afraid I was going to miss someone. When 2007 came around I rejoiced that Excel could now handle 1 MILLION RECORDS!!!!!! SWEET HEAVEN ON HIGH!!!!! And I resolved to remove you from my shit list.
Today however, you have regained your number 1 spot back on my shit list. Today, I needed to export 756K records into Excel from Access. (please forgive me; anyone of you, who are lost at this point) It would be no problem right? ONE MILLION RECORDS, I had several hundred thousand records to play with! No sweat! Alas, Bill, may I call you Bill? Bill, I got an error message. The message told me that “Clipboard” could only handle 65K records and that I should try cutting my list into two. Whaaa? But, but, BUT!!!! This cannot be the case! You promised me ONE MILLION record capacity!!! What is the point of that if I can’t use it??? I tried exporting (I miss my office links -> analysis in excel, must EVERYTHING be exported nowadays?) it as a Text file. Same error. Bill, I don’t like getting errors. It raises my blood pressure and puts me into panic mode. Surely, Bill, you can understand my SHOCK to find that CSV is NO LONGER offered as an Export option. Did CSV offend you somehow Bill? Did CSV fall into the wrong crowd and you felt the need to punish it? Were you tired of it getting confused with CVS? Text just doesn’t do it for me. CSV used to be my work-around to your little 65K record limit. Of course I still couldn’t open it in Excel, but it made me feel like I was somehow beating the system. Bill, you have taken that wee bit of triumph away from me. It seems to me that you have woefully underestimated the usage of your product. It is as though you’ve said, “Eh, I’ll TELL them they can list ONE MILLION records at a time, but goodness me, they’ll never actually USE it!! Hahahahahahaha. HA.”
So I curse you and your tantalizing carrot waving of ONE MILLION (Dr. Evil voice EVERY SINGLE TIME) record capacity in Excel.
As Rep Joe Wilson says: “YOU LIE!”

An Open Letter to AmEx

Dear American Express:
Until recently, I never counted myself as one of you card holders. When F and I joined Costco*, part of the deal was getting one of your cards. Since AmEx is the ONLY credit card Costco* will accept. Not too long ago you sent F (the account is in his name) a letter stating that due to the current economic climate, you were reducing our credit limit. In your letter you stated that if we wrote and asked you the reasoning behind why you did this, you would tell us. So I hopped on my computer and fired off a short letter requesting this information. In my rush, I transposed our house number. You sent a letter, to the “new” address, which happened to be our neighbor, confirming the “address change” on the Costco AmEx, but wanted to know if we would also like to “change the address” on the “Blue” AmEx. With absolutely NO mention of the actual reason of my letter, the credit line reduction.
HUH????
Since the 30day window to obtain this information had passed, I filled out the “change of address” box on the next bill and sent it back. I am still waiting to receive a letter confirming the “address change” back to what it was originally.
During this waiting period we receive two identical letters concerning each AmEx card telling us, that once again, due to the “economic climate” you are INCREASING the APR.
I can’t help but see a pattern here concerning your reasoning skills. First, you seem to lack attention to detail. I write you a letter requesting information, and you change my address. You are quick enough (not really) to notice that we have 2 cards with you and want to know if the address for the second card needs to be changed. But you are NOT quick enough to send us ONE copy of a letter increasing our APR. I can see now where that increase is being put to use, mailing and printing costs.
Second, your reasoning behind increasing the APR seems to be decidedly short sighted. It is quite clear across the nation that people are losing jobs, homes, and are barely scraping by, but you decide now, NOW would be an EXCELLENT time to charge these same people more money. I feel it is my duty to point out the obvious, that these people do not have extra money to cover your increased APR.
I can see that I should have stuck with my past avoidance of you. My knowledge of you then was that you charged people a yearly fee for the privilege of paying off their card each month which, contrary to your marketing hype, is not accepted everywhere, and it IS best to leave home without it.
Consider this my first notice that once these cards are paid off, we will in fact be cancelling them. Because I’m sure you’ll take this to mean we want ANOTHER card with you and hence I’ll end up having to cancel 3 cards instead of just 2.

*Costco??? Get your head out of your ass and come to the realization that AmEx has got you (and your customers) over a barrel and they are all out of Vaseline.

Avert Your Eyes

Dear MSN Web Master,

Please remove this pop-up ad from Hotmail. I really don't need to see it as I read my e-mail. It is bad enough I have to look at my own nasty flab without having to see some else's several times a day.

Trust me, it is much worse in color.

Thank You.

An Open Letter

This is an Open Letter to Oil of Olay. AKA, "OLAY" because apparently "oil" is a bad thing when it comes to skin care products, even if it is from Olay, which honestly I have no clue what it is, but I always thought is was something ancient and old worldly.



Ahem....



Dear Makers of "Olay",

I am a multi-generational user of your base product, "Original" Active Hydrating Beauty Fluid. My Grandmother used it her entire life (god rest her soul) and my mother uses it based on her long ago recommendation. We are talking DECADES worth users. I began using it more regularly as my 35th birthday approaches. I had a bottle, that I'll admit, was several years old. But since I used only a small amount at a time, it lasted for eons. As it came to its sputtering end, I purchased a new bottle. I was very relieved to see that it was the "Original" because I know many companies feel the need to "improve" their products over the years.
That relief was short lived however.
You continued your deceit with the bottle shape, the same as always. The facade began to crumble with the new label design. It was hip, flashy, new agey. No longer the quiet trustworthy distinction of the understated. Behind the new label design lurked a more chemicalized scent. It was no longer a scent that while hugging you makes your brother exclaim, "Wow, you smell good. *pause* Actually, you smell like mom." The fluid itself was heavier and thicker. It no longer felt "greaseless" even though you say it still is. I rubbed it into my face. The frown lines I was trying to hide with your product, deepened in disappointment because of it. It is NOT the Original. Shame on you for claiming that is it. I want the Original ORIGINAL. Not something that is originally improved. It is not improved. It is an impostor. Why I ask you, change something that for generations was trusted as it was? Why???? I have not decided if I will continue to use your product after what I currently own has been depleted.
You sadden me "Olay".
You sadden and disappoint me.