When I first moved in here I received (regularly) about two dozen catalogs in the previous resident’s name. These covered varied interests, but with a particular concentration in the field of “fluffy things.” I swear I got an entire catalog of pillows once – every page, nothing but pillows.

I of course dropped these subscriptions as the catalogs continued streaming in. This yielded conversations like the following (which I swear I am not making up):

Woman, Answering Phone: Women’s lingerie department, how can I help you?
Me: I’d like to unsubscribe from your catalog
Her: (beat) Err.. are you sure you’re not looking for the men’s department?
Me: (deadpanned) Nope.

This afternoon a new Dell catalog streamed in, so I pulled up Dell’s website to unsubscribe. Here are their procedures:

“To add, remove or update your mailing address from the catalog mailing list, you need to be registered on our e-mail subscription list. If you are not already registered, you can do so on the following webpage.” (emphasis mine)

That’s right. To remove your mailing address from their catalog list, you must first subscribe to their e-mail list. You can then unsubscribe from that too, but you have to be on it first.

Fortunately for all of us, they don’t do challenge-response validation of e-mail addresses, so I registered Mr. Not Gonna Happen (first name “Not,” last name “Gonna Happen,” no middle name) with his example.com address. He’ll probably enjoy the catalogs more than I.

Oh, and Dell? I did it all from a shiny 24-inch iMac. How do you like them Apples?