Dodo Eggs

About a month ago I visited the website of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.  I was riffling through their site store looking for something that sparked my interest.  Much of it was Viking themed junk (key chains, PEZ dispensers, purple covers for your pepper spray) but something did stand out.  It was the official Viking’s Yearbook.  A publication I hoped would be filled with stats, history, and interesting player profiles.   With everything else on the site priced six times above cost, I was surprised to find it was only eleven dollars.

 I clicked on the Yearbook then on the little digital cart to follow through with my purchase.  “Wow, shipping and handling is only another eleven dollars or I could have it over-nighted for fifty!” 

Look, why don’t we just drop the shipping and handling blurb and call it a sucker tax?  I’m serious.  Anyway, I paid the eleven dollars and it still took THREE WEEKS to get the #$@ thing. 

When the glossy pages finally did reach my eager fingertips, I dived in hoping for twenty-two dollars of riveting information on the team.  Instead, the player profiles were portraits of selected players looking menacing with a tiny box of their career statistics.  The articles where exercises in hyperbole.  (“Head Coach Brad Childress is the football mind behind filing the ball with air!  He is currently trying to change our national colors from red, white, and blue to purple and gold.  No doubt he will be successful in this as he has everything else in his life!”)  Worst of all…the cheerleaders were given only headshots.  Morons!  I don’t care about the cheerleader’s hair!!
 

I honestly believe a high school journalism class could have put together a more interesting publication.  I know I could.

 However, the worst part wasn’t the price or the content.  It’s a phenomenon I call HYC.  
 H – Haunt
 Y – Your
 C – Customers

To buy the yearbook, I needed to hand over my email address.  I hoped it was only to send me my receipt but I was wrong again.  Now I get advertisements in my email inbox telling me about other great products I most likely can’t live without.  I really only wanted the yearbook.  That’s it…I mean it.  This happens all the time!  

*Are you foolish enough to order something from a JCREW catalogue?  HYC!  Now you’re going to need a forklift to empty your mailbox each day!

*Have you given money to a charity but didn’t want to become a long time supporter?  HYC!  Get ready for six hundred IMORTANT MESSAGES regarding the starving lamas in Ecuador.

*Did you order something from ITunes?  Hope you like email messages!  HYC!  With your next purchase, Apple is offering you an application that doesn’t allow you to delete Apple emails!  Order now!

There’s nothing that can be done to stem the onslaught of HYC.  It’s one of the inoperable cancers of our capitalist system.  Just mimic what I’ve started doing…handing out my wife’s email address and my neighbor’s address.  Works like a charm.

 Note #1:  The Viking’s site had a lot of loud slogans for fans.  One that caught my eye was, “Show Your Horns!”  I think I know what they’re trying to say but it sounds a little exhibitionist to me.  I recommend checking state laws before…showing your horns.
 

Note #2:  A quick word about my relationship with the Vikings:  I’ve grown up rooting for the team and have digested every bitter defeat as if it was my own.  When you consider that my expectations for my own behavior are surprisingly low, a Viking’s loss bothers me more than my own personal missteps.  Do the fortunes of a sports organization have any bearing on my life…nope…but I get emotionally invested anyway.  I take it personally.  Does that make any sense?

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