Contained in this post are excerpts from a letter I was compelled to write recently in order to obtain a rebate for disposable contact lenses. For now I will spare you the letter's last two paragraphs and their abstract theorizing about modernity and customer service — I leave those observations instead for some twenty-second century archivist to edit for inclusion in the
Epistulae Phutatorii — as I think the story is best told without commentary:
Mary ********
Gage Marketing Services
ACUVUE $30 Rebate Offer
P.O. Box 9900 Dept. 386-011
Maple Plain, MN 55592
Re: ACUVUE rebate.
Dear Ms. ********:
I am in receipt of your letter notifying me that I “did not include the correct proof(s) of purchase required for this promotion.” The materials and instructions I read asked that I provide four “box tops.”
In my experience, a “box top” is that portion of a box that one raises to open the box. Based on that experience I sent you the slim tabs clipped from four boxes of my contact lenses. Those tabs are raised to open the box. Perhaps I was mistaken in what “box tops” was supposed to mean, as it was not adequately explained. . . . I therefore now enclose the boxes in their entirety, on the presumption that some portion of each whole box must by definition be passable as a “box top.”
* * *
Please do not hesitate to alert me to future irregularities in my submission. I await as ever your watermarked reply.
Sincerely,
[Phutatorius]
