return of the gratitute attitude #1

hi there

well, what can i say. rather surprisingly, i have already had one response to the letters i posted a week or so ago and that, thus far, very few of you were interested in, going on the stats, look you see. i don't let any lack of readership stop me at the best of times, so i am certainly not going to allow it to now.

it was with no little amount of delight and joy that i returned from verk today and found that i had received a letter from no less a place than Luxembourg; easily the most important and highly regarded of the so-called "benelux" trilogy.

to my knowledge this is the first ever letter, or form of mail, that i have received off of Luxembourg. which is odd, as i think i have a friend living there. or somewhere near it. Belgium, maybe? she knows who she is and indeed where she is (probably) and thus if she is of a mind to do something or other about it, well, i would suspect that she will be able to work out a way to obtain the necessary information from me to facilitate this sort of thing. but this seems to be getting away from the point at hand here. rather like the original post, hence not many of you reading it, i suppose.

so who, if not my friend, is the letter off of the Luxembourg from? surprisingly, Colgate. a surprise because i wrote to them at a distinctly English address, and a further surprise as they were the second last ones i anticipated hearing off of.

what did i write to them about? well let me see if i saved the letter i sent and share most of it with you. ah, it seems i did. here you go.

Dear Colgate

I write to you in respect of your MaxFresh With Mouthwash Beads Mint Burst toothpaste.

My father is very enthusiastic about this particular toothpaste. Very enthusiastic indeed, as it happens. He lives, by choice, in New Zealand. Sadly your company does not presently sell this toothpaste in the New Zealand market.

The net result of this is that I, over the last four years, have been required to purchase this toothpaste and post it to him. I am, quite frankly, tired of doing this, and a little bored with the interrogation I get at the post office when they ask what the contents of the parcel are. It’s all “why are you sending toothpaste to New Zealand?” and so forth, like I am some sort of shady criminal.

I would ask you to start selling it in New Zealand, but I imagine you have reasons for not doing this. Besides, even if you did, I would imagine he would just consider it “more economically viable” to get me to post it from here rather than go to the shops and get it himself.

Please could you give me a bit of a break and send him some? Just a tube or two, really, and then I don’t have to worry about it for a month or so. His address is –

 

 

My gratitude and thanks if you do this for him. If you do, sorry in advance if he all of a sudden, as is the case with me, starts emailing you pictures of him using the last tube he has, which is his way of rather directly saying “it is time to send more”.

Yours faithfully, etc, etc.............

a quick break from all of this is to the side here, with for your viewing pleasure a look at what i am led to believe as being London, in all of its full on Nancy Boy glory.

my letter to the Colgate was, as i would like to think you can work out from reading it, well intentioned, sincere even, and almost certainly from the heart. it is greatly appreciated by me that they took the time to not only read my letter, but to respond to it to. i have yet to determine my feelings, thoughts, reaction or concerns to the fact that they elected to issue the response from an entirely different country. is it something i should have some sort of feeling about? we are, for the time being, after all, all part of this celebrated European Union, or if you like EU, thing. if any thoughts come to me about this i shall most certainly give consideration to sharing them here, whether you are interested in that or not.

somewhat slightly less appreciated was certain elements, or indeed aspects, of their response. one part in particular has caused me some particular distress. and no, not the voucher.

i don't know if you can read much of anything in the above, but there's a section that starts off with "we regret to inform you that.....". yeah, nightmare time. we are in full on crisis mode. it would appear that, in their wisdom, Colgate have decided to stop making toothpaste that has had lovebeads shoved into it.

whilst regular readers will know what a problem this will be - and it will be made to be my problem by my Dad, believe you me - the newer reader might be baffled by this. if you have the ability to search this blog, and are for some reason curious, i suggest you look for post relating to "love bead toothpaste", from around July 2012 onwards. and i do mean onwards.

no doubt i am going to be expected to either petition Colgate to change their mind about this, or otherwise i will be instructed to enter the black market and ensure i obtain him illicit supplies.

yeah, i know, first world problem, that. there are far worse things in the world that happen than a brand of toothpaste being no more. like, for instance, the facebook breaking.

there are, dear reader, four more companies out there that i have entered into correspondence with. one of them you know, from the original post that so few of you read, is Lynx. as, or indeed when, i get replies from the others, i shall update you here. hopefully the other ones will not cause my Dad quite so much distress in their words back to me. 

will i use the voucher? not sure. as i think it is intended as some sort of "sorry for that" thing about the end of the era of toothpaste with lovebeads in it, it might be appropriate - apt, perhaps - to send it to my Dad. i shall consider the matter for now and make a decision when i am of a mind to do so. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!