December 9, 1995

Hi Gang:

Happy Holidays and thanks for joining me again this year. I've made a few small changes like purging the mailing list although if you're reading this that doesn't really concern you. I've also ditched the questionnaire because it just didn't seem as amusing as it used to. If you miss it -- by all means scratch out your own questions, answer them and send them on over. In fact, here's one to get you started: why does my refrigerator door have 20 of those little hollowed out thingys to hold eggs? Finally, for the first time I have some guest contributors. This year's letter is devoted to recounting the numerous exciting moments that make my existence so special.

OUTDOOR PAM

During the summer I went camping with my family in central Washington, south of Mt. Rainier at what is referred to as a "primitive" camp area. Doesn't the word primitive bring to mind hairy, sloped-head Neanderthals, sitting around desperately trying to invent the wheel? Wasn't really like that. It was gorgeous scenery, some lakes (more accurately, reservoirs, I believe), hot in the sun, but nice breeze in the shade. Good company and, to my own personal detriment, too much food. Have you heard about "poppers?" This is a completely demented food product which consists of a jalapeno pepper stuffed with cream cheese, breaded and fried. They taste really good and I think 1 popper supplies about 245% of the U.S. recommended daily allowance of fat. I ate about ten of them. Plus I drank beer and ate chips and as you might guess, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling, well let's just say: not so hot and there I was in a tent, you know the kind with all these zippers that go back and forth but never seem to open the tent door? In the meantime, on our drive out we'd heard on the radio that it was the 40th (or whatever, I can't remember how long) anniversary of starting this UFO reporting service and the first report had been 9 UFO's spotted over Mt. Rainier and I'd spent the entire afternoon talking about UFO sightings and abductions, and Sasquatch -- so here I am, stuck in the tent, feeling really sketchy but I'm too terrified to go outside.

CONSUMER PAM Part I

I am one of these ultra-save-a-tree mentality people who often places phone calls to zealous catalog publishers when I think I'm getting too many catalogs -- in this case, three at the office. So I call and I have to read the info off the mailing labels so they know what to cancel and then the lady wants MY name and address. "What for?" I say. "Are you going to send ME a catalog." "I don't think so." she says, a little catty, in my opinion. "We need it in case we have to verify the cancellation." VERIFY THE CANCELLATION? I had no idea there were all these troublemakers out there burning up the phone wires calling and cancelling catalogs.

Like I'm sure there are people in this world slapping their foreheads right now and saying "Damn! No Harry and David's catalog this year. I'll bet someone fraudulently cancelled my catalog. Someone's going to pay for this!" And on the topic of mail order -- I got bent out of shape because I called Eddie Bauer to order something out of the catalog and the first question they asked me was: "How will you be paying today and what is the card number?" Not "Hi", not "What's your name?" They want to know how I'm paying. It took at least 6 more questions before they even asked me my name or what I wanted to buy. You can bet Mr. Bauer got a tart letter from me. I told him I found this practice "repellent". "Hey," I said. "You can at least pretend you care about me as least as much as you care about my billing information." Haven't heard back from him yet.

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PHOTO: Pam in the village of the Dead. PHOTOGRAPHER: Bob.

Posted: 4.23.99
http://www.pamrentz.com/pampage/xmas/v5/p1.html