A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising"

Here is a message I sent today to Viking River Cruises®. In the pull-down menu, I categorized the missive as "Other":


Dear Viking River Cruises® -- "Exploring the World in Comfort"®,

Over the past eleven months, you have sent me 24 postcards, 19 full-size, full-color brochures, and, yesterday, an informational DVD extolling the sine qua non virtues and (year-round) limited-time-only savings of "the world’s leading river cruise line... by far." I don’t know what I did to deserve such treatment -- perhaps I raped a poodle in a previous life -- but I can assure you it had nothing to do with ever signing up for your mailing list.

I am thus writing to say: Please stop. First of all, I’m a grad student with a household income of approximately negative $25,000 a year; I cannot afford a Russian hooker in Far Rockaway, Queens, much less a Russian river cruise. Secondly, the 19^th full-size-full-color brochure was no more convincing than the 18^th. Besides wasting your time and money, you have, with the junk mail you’ve sent to me alone, laid waste to enough trees to (ironically enough) build a riverboat. (That you are based in Woodland Hills, CA only makes such ecological irresponsibility more egregious.)

In summary, you are the most annoying company in the world... by far. (The Men’s Wearhouse is a distant second.) I have already told everyone I know to never take a Viking River Cruise®. If you do not want me to start also telling people I don’t know, cease with the junk-mail carpet-bombing operation at once.

Much appreciation in advance,

Homunculus J. Reilly
"Customer" #1145086482

P.S. River cruises suck.