FOLLIES IN MARKETING, VOL. 3

• The selfless people at St. Matthew's Church in Tulsa sent me a wonderful letter. The largest printing on the page read:

  GOD'S HOLY BLESSING POWER IS IN THE ENCLOSED
  ANOINTED PRAYER RUG WE ARE LOANING YOU TO USE!!!

  I always thought Muslims used prayer rugs, not Christians. But sure enough, St. Matthew's Church in Tulsa sent me a prayer rug. Well. When St. Matthew's Church and I say "prayer rug," we mean "large piece of paper printed to look like an Oriental rug with a large picture of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, with a single tear trickling from his left eye." The instructions on the prayer rug read, "Look into Jesus' Eyes and you will see they are closed. But as you continue to look you will see His eyes opening and looking back into your eyes. Then go and be alone and kneel on this Rug of Faith or touch it to both knees. Then please check your needs on our letter to you. Please return this Prayer Rug. Do not keep it."
  
  The prayer rug was too big to scan, but I scanned both pages of the letter. I know you're busy and don't usually click on images in blogs, but I promise that reading this letter will entertain you more than your recurring dream of licking mayonnaise off of Condoleezza Rice's thighs. You cannot miss the letter's ridiculous opening salutation; the random sprinkling of capital letters, boldface print, and red underlining; and the not-so-veiled promises of the "financial blessings" to come if I follow the instructions exactly. You can read the first page here and the second page here.
  
  The letter brags no fewer than four times that St. Matthew's Church is 53 years old, and refers to this as "very old." Hey, Bruce, you live in Tulsa -- would you mind stopping off at St. Matthew's and mentioning that 53 years is not terribly old for a church? My childhood church in Mason City, Iowa, was over a century old, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in France was built more than 700 years ago.
  
  The second page had a bunch of prayer request boxes to check off. I went ahead and requested prayers for, among other things: My Soul, A Closer Walk With Jesus, A Better Job, A New Car, and My Children (I got sort of carried away). I thought a while before filling in "Pray for God to bless me with this amount of money: $______________," and finally wrote in $1,000,000,000.00. Start high and work your way down, right? I also requested prayers for everyone on my blogroll and some of my regular commenters. (My apologies to Smallholder, DrReverend, Preyster, Tim, and June -- I got in a hurry and forgot to include you, so I guess you're on your own.) The letter said to "pray about sowing a seed gift to the Lord's work," so I taped a penny to the page and sent it back with the prayer rug. The letter pledges to send "A WONDERFUL, FREE, SPIRITUAL GIFT THAT WILL BE A BLESSING TO [ME] FOR A LIFETIME." I can't wait!
  
  
• While driving to get lunch last week, I saw a homeless woman at the I-70 entrance holding a sign reading "CASH." Bonus points for keeping it simple, but "CASH" as opposed to... what? Traveler's checks? Gold bullion? Wampum?
  
  
• Qwest, my local phone company, made a mistake on my last phone bill, allowing MCI to charge me $100.98 for a 77-minute, in-state long-distance phone call. Those of you who have had to dispute obviously bogus charges with the phone company know that I could rant for pages about calling MCI, who told me to call Qwest, who told me to call MCI's Customer Service department, who transferred me to MCI's High Toll department, who transferred me to a different Customer Service department. I will simply say that I was seething by the time I reached Unhelpful Person #5.
  
  "Well," said Unhelpful Person #5, "these are valid charges, so you'll have to go ahead and pay them, sir."
  
  "No, I refuse to pay these charges," I said. "This is a mistake made by Qwest, because I never had MCI as my long-distance company. What do we need to do to clear this up with Qwest today?"
  
  "As I said, these are valid charges, so you'll have to pay them, sir," Unhelpful Person #5 said, and quickly added, "but since you're not an MCI customer, let me tell you about our calling packages that can save you up to 40% on your long-distance bill. Right away I can see that you qualify for our..."
  
  HELPFUL TIP FOR ALL COMPANIES EVERYWHERE: The best time to pitch your products and services is not when you have an angry customer on the phone whom you are trying to cheat out of $100.98.
  
  [Happy ending: I demanded to talk to Unhelpful Person #5's supervisor, who immediately agreed to give me credit for the excessive portion of the bill. The moral of the story: give customer service flunkies two minutes to solve your problem, and then say, loudly and rudely, "You are not helping me. Let me talk to your supervisor."]
  
  
• Somebody posted a notice on the bulletin board at my workplace for a screening of a movie called Women of K2, about female mountain climbers. I can't be the only person who thinks "Women of K2" sounds like a Playboy photo spread.

+posted by Lawrence @ 4/21/2004 10:23:00 PM