An Open Letter

An Open Letter to the Various Manufacturers of Newborn and Infant Products:


Dear Sirs/Madams:


I have been receiving heavy mailings from many of you recently.

High-value coupons for Newborn Swaddlers, monthly coupons for $3-5 off of formula. I have even received two formula samples in the mail, and a stray newborn diaper sample or two. Gerber infant food coupons, baby life insurance - it is a veritable deluge.

(Universe, you are not funny!)

The first few mailings I could take, and laugh off to error. But when the cans of formula started arriving in the mailbox, and even a bottle sample?!? I had to take action.

I appreciate the quantity of personal reproduction information you must have filed away on me. I am the first to admit that, yes, I have a number of children. And I can see how, according to your calculations, it must be time to add to that number, as my youngest has just turned two. I truly applaud your initiative, as it were, but I have a statement to make for the record.

Dear manufacturers, whom I have supported well and often over the past nine years: I will no longer be needing your services. It is not, in fact, breeding time again. Not even your glorious $5 coupons can change my mind this time, though it pains me to say it. Your itty-bitty diapers did not bring up a well of sentiment, and your baby food especially did not make me wistful.

I ask that you stop and desist these erroneous mailings immediately! I am no longer laughing, and in fact, when I fetch the mail and find infant information - I am prone to language that my chidren should not be hearing. Sending newborn mailings to a mom home with four in the summer is just wrong!

Now, if you have any summer camp vouchers handy, or valuable food coupons - those I could use. Or, and I know this is stretching it - some Pull-up coupons? With Toy Story on them? That is completely in line with the direction we are going. Really. Age it up a little. We are still in the toddler phase, after all.

Sincerely,
B.


PS/FYI: I have tried on numerous occasions to give away our infant carseat over the past year, to no avail. I even took it to Goodwill - and they refused it. Again, Universe. Enough with the Not Funny.