Monday 6 September 2010

Congratulations you have just won

a holiday on an iceberg in the Antarctic. This is a wonderful opportunity to watch the whales, the waves and te penguins. You will be sharing your holiday with penguins but please do not approach or disturb them in anyway. They cover 99% of the iceberg. You may not pitch a tent on the remaining 1% but you are permitted to take one of our $1000 sleeping bags provided that you agree to remove it at the end of your stay. You will also need to obtain Iceberg clothing from our Iceberg store but we are providing it at cost to special customers providing that you sign on to take your holiday before the end of the month. Due to a tendency for icebergs to melt you may not take any form of heating with you, instead we will provide our new Warmberg apparatus. Due to legal requirements we will require you to sign a secrecy agreement about this exciting new technology. This will incur a small legal fee of $5000 on your part. Meals and drinks are extra but our no-star Michelin chef is able to cater for all diets.
This is the most exciting holiday on Earth and we know that you will want to take advantage of this free offer.
Maybe. Most likely not. No, definitely not. I am, I hope, immune to such sales nonsense. My internet provider does an excellent job of removing such nonsense before it gets to my mail box. Anything like that which arrives in the letter box gets marked "RTS" (return to sender) and put in another letter box. If people try to cold call us we report them because we are on the "Do Not Call" register.
I even avoid entering competitions where my name is likely to go on a mailing list. My name was on the mailing list for a book list. It has occasionally been a very useful book list but new people took the firm over and they also sold the mailing list on to another organisation without permission. I have asked for my name to be removed from both lists. One has lost a potential customer and the other will never be supported by me.
Yesterday I said this to someone I know and they looked at me in alarm. "But you might miss out on something!" No, not yet. It is unlikely. I think I can live with the possibility. I do not want to buy a holiday on an iceberg in the Antarctic.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh come on Cat, you could talk to the penguins! Bob C-S

Melinda Szymanik said...

But out of the frustration and the loss of privacy came this fabulous gem - he he.

word ver - gusts (which are only experienced on the uninhabited 1% of the iceberg)

catdownunder said...

Thankyou Bob but no thankyou! Melinda I could not resist having a bit of fun with this but your word verification is even better! :-)

Rachel Fenton said...

Awe - and I thought you were going to chase the penguins...I don't do competitiong either but I did challenge my husband, last year, to see who could save/make the most money through complaining! Needless to add, I won! I got a toaster, new shoes, blender...

Ann said...

Well done you! I have put my number on our no call list too. Hate those calls just as you are about to settle down to your dinner.

Thanks for stopping by my for KarenG's BBQ. Delighted to make your acquaintance.

Melinda Szymanik said...

the only kind of penguins I want to get in touch with are the publishing kind - if they had them in Icebergia I'd be there in a shot