« One Wedding, Two Dinners, and a Brunch | Main | Little Blue »
October 23, 2007
Calling Suburban Maryland
With the recent mailing of Volume 10, The Clearing, to the Idiots'Books subscribership, year one of Idiots'Books officially came to an end. This meant that the 100 or so people that signed up in October 2006 for full-year subscriptions had reached the end of their allotted bookage. As all subscription services do, we sent out a series of reminders, gentle at first, then slightly more urgent, then downright manipulative. Our final ploy was to design a postcard featuring a variety of lame excuses for not having done something accompanied by a phrase meant to cast he who had failed to resubscribe in an unflattering light.
The postcard was accompanied by a pre-addressed, stamped envelope, thus compelling the reluctant resubscriber to spend $80 so as not to waste $.41. However counterintuitive, the strategy has been moderately successful. Until yesterday, when an envelope arrived with the postmark "Suburban Maryland."
Let's reflect on that for a minute. Suburban Maryland? Not a very helpful geographical distinction. There are, for example, several cities in Maryland, all of which have outlying suburban areas.
The contents of the envelope were even more cryptic: our resubscription card had been filled out with the following phrase, an obvious allusion to Idiots'Books Volume VI.
The mystery was completed by what was missing from the envelope: namely, a check. The question now is whether this unidentified denizen of "Suburban Maryland" intended to confound us or merely forgot to include the check (and the accompanying identifying information) in the envelope.
Only time will tell, I suppose. But if you are he who intended to resubscribe, know this: you will receive no further books until you identify yourself and submit payment in full.
And you're not getting another free stamp.
Posted by bogenamp at October 23, 2007 05:44 PM