Contemporary essays, fiction, and opinion offered regularly by author Anne Brandt.






Question for the week
How might I punctuate the following sentence? Students, stop cutting in line(?)stop throwing food(?)and stop leaving trash.
Ten minutes to
write.
Less time to
read.
Email Confirmation
Posted: 12/03/07
I do most of my holiday shopping via catalog and the telephone; and it seems to work well. There’s just one thing I find annoying about the process, and that’s getting an email confirmation of my order.

Don’t get me wrong; I like to have a confirmation number in case things run amok. But what I learned last year is that once the company (It could be Land’s End or Orvis or Cooking Enthusiast) has my email address it bombards me with regular notices of sales, free shipping, new merchandise, you name it. And it bombards me all year long.

I know I can “unsubscribe,” but that requires effort on my part. So this year, I’m returning to the old fashioned way of tracking my packages. When the sales associate politely asks, “And would you like an email confirmation of your order?” I politely say “No thank you. Just give me the number over the phone.”

Of course this won’t stop me from getting notices from those companies that already have my email address on file, but at least I won’t get additional communiqués. And, after the holidays, I think I will unsubscribe to Red Envelope, Macy’s, Joanne Fabric, etc.


Click here to send this
mini-essay to a friend.


Previous entries
Due to the volume of entries, Anne's Ten Minutes A Day are now categorized by date and by topics. Some essays are found under more than one topic.

Click here for a chronological list.

Otherwise, select from the categories below.

2004 Election2008 ElectionAnnoyances
Changing SceneDining/FoodFlora/Fauna
Me/FamilyNostalgiaPersonal Pleas
PoliticsSmall Town LifeSpecial Events
TechnologyThings to PonderTravel
Writing