Wine vouchers

Picture this: you bought an external hard disk drive* from Amazon. The delivery day arrives and there, you got the box. You promptly open it, anxiously looking forward to connecting it to your computer (a Mac Mini in this case; not that it is relevant, but just in case you're an information junkie). And once you battle with all the protective packaging and wrapping and whatnots, you reach the actual drive box. Voilà! Here's the box, the receipt... and a handful of wine vouchers? What do hard disks have to do with wine vouchers? Huh?

Bah, you just discard the wine vouchers and blame it on some error on their CRM software. Or something. Not that you care! It's backup time!

Some months later, you decide to buy train tickets online. Because it seems that if you buy them early enough, they are way cheaper. OK, so tickets are bought and therefore delivered by post. And what comes with the tickets' receipt?

Another wine voucher!

You think for a moment --just a little moment-- there's a mysterious pattern unravelling here, right now. But given the stupidity of the offer, you promptly forget about the offer, the vouchers and the potential wine vouchers mafia operating in every online store in the UK.

Yet more months afterwards, another online purchase happens, this time a spare part for an oven. Can you guess what was in the same envelope that the part came in? More wine vouchers!

And here I am really wondering what's going on with these omnipresent wine vouchers and trying to recall any other vouchers that I might have already been offered but automatically discarded, as I always do. Maybe there really is a wine mafia? Or is it just because wine is fashionable nowadays? Or --heaven forbid-- is it because they are targeting their ads and offering me products which they think are the most appropriate and/or desirable for women**?

  • The nostalgia moment: does anyone remember when hard drives used to be called Winchester drives?! ;-)

** I was once told that ladies ought to drink a cup of wine. Just as I was holding a Red Stripe can.