A Letter To My Stalker, Crate and Barrel

Dear Crate and Barrel,

We have to talk. You’re great. I mean, really, you’re great. You have a ton of really nice furniture and you love to make people feel inadequate, so maybe in another life we could have dated for a few months. Perhaps it would have even ended in a living room fire. Or, if things went sour, perhaps it would have ended in a kitchen fire. Crate and Barrel, you believe we have some kind of connection and I get that, I really do. BUT YOU HAVE TO STOP EMAILING ME.

These emails are bonkers. Every day, without fail, I login to my Gmail to see another fraught message from you about your gorgeous flatware or maybe your six different collections of outdoor furniture.  You know who spends their time outdoors in New York City? Rats. And I am not buying them expensive deep-seated low-slung pieces with modern silhouettes—at least not after they chewed a hole in my building’s garbage cans and then refused to invite me to their BBQ.

Crate and Barrel, you need to get a grip. Sometimes there are as many as two or three a day from you in my inbox. Who do you think you are? Seamless Web? Crate and Barrel, I have met Seamless Web and you, sir, are no Seamless Web. We have a complicated history together that you could never understand.  It involves a ton of emotions/burritos.

Every subject line of your emails is filled with exclamation marks. Most of them are just plain begging me to come back.  Crate and Barrel, it’s kind of desperate. Sure, I’ve been inside you, but that was like once when I was drunk. What is it a crime now to get drunk in public and  then shop for your cousin’s bridal shower?

Who knows? Maybe it was more meaningful to you than I perceived at the time. Is that really MY fault? This is 2013, Crate and Barrel, not an episode of Dawson’s creek.  Get your shit together.

I feel like, at this point, you’re just making up excuses to email me. Really, there’s a big “upholstery event”? C’mon! You can’t just invent ridiculous fake occasions.  What’s next, your boss gave you two free tickets to a beluga whale’s bat mitzvah?

I’m sorry, but these emails have to stop. It’s not like I’m leading you on; I haven’t replied to a single one of these emails.  I am just not interested in you or anything you have to offer, Crate and Barrel. We have nothing in common.  You love “fresh kitchen accessories.”  I eat a lot of stuff out of cans.

You know what I actually WOULD be interested in?  A crate or a barrel! Neither of which are items you actually carry. Trust me, if you did I would know, because you’ve sent me 80 emails in the past three days.

So please, Crate and Barrel, let me go like a pair of wine glasses at 60% off.  There are so many people for you out there. People with things like revolving wine racks, energy-saving dishwashers, or one of those fancy, non-graffitied front doors—you know, better people. Well, not better, just better for you.

So let’s do this like adults—or like one adult and one moderately upscale furniture chain. Actually wait, scratch that. Let’s do this like one moderately upscale furniture chain and one happy, free, confused, and lonely singer-songwriter:  Crate and Barrel, we are never, ever, ever, getting back together.

Forever unsubscribed,

LJM