The Restless Mouse

We have been getting various requests for catalogs. Reasons for catalog requests vary ( Toni C. in Texas writes; “If I stare at the computer too long, I tend to make a horrible honking sound and crave pickle juice. It’s odd.” ) Others simply want to read in a more comfortable spot.

I have been remiss in my catalog duties, it needs a lot of work and a lot of items added. But it’s summer here, quite hot in my attic office space. Everyone is cranky except the dog, and he only looks cheerful because he is panting. Anyway, I am going to get caught up on those, sorry for the delay.

I was going to post this as “What Would Jesus Do” but I can’t picture him peddling fart machines on the Internet… Anyway, we have an unhappy customer… Here’s the poop on that… We sent two windup furry mice to a lady in Indiana, a couple days later, this email…

I received my order, but the black mouse came to me broken. Not real happy.

Normally we wind them up one turn just in case on small orders like this, but haven’t been finding bad mice, so I guess this one slipped through the proverbial crack. All I can do at this point is offer refund or replace. But I know already this is a customer that is lost to us. So I reply;

I am sorry the black mouse is broken. I can send a (tested!) replacement, or refund for that mouse and half the shipping, although I would rather have sent you good mice in the first place, I guess we need to test those before sending. Thanks for letting me know, John

…If you were in her shoes, would you consider this fair? I offered a free replacement, or the entire cost of the defective item PLUS half of the shipping she paid. I didn’t ask for a return of the defective product in this case. I might have bent over backwards and refunded the whole order, until I got this;

I think it’s pretty bad that I have to pay anything for a defective product. Forget it! I just won’t order from your company anymore. I also sent a copy of this to the state attorney general’s office in Indianapolis, IN. And, I told all of my friends about your company.

Now I have seriously itchy keyboarding fingers here but my mama always admonished me, “The more you stir shit, the worse it stinks”. NOT REAL HAPPY to have the full wrath of the Indiana Attorney General’s Office coming down on us. I will try to keep you posted about this contuinuing saga from the jailhouse.

TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE

Now I have the song “Indiana wants me” stuck in my head.
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SECRET WORD COUPON: Use the secret word “Indiana” in the comments field of your order and I will throw in a black windup mouse (working!) - If she doesn’t want hers maybe you could use one.

Kudos to Pam W. at handmadecatalog.com - I bought a light box for tracing art from her on ebay, but when it arrived the light bulb was broken- I emailed her about it and got this reply;

Hi John, I am sorry to hear the light box arrived with a broken bulb. It wasn’t broken when it was shipped as I inspected it personally, but that doesn’t help you much does it. I will send you a replacement light bulb in tomorrow’s mail.

How cool is that? it’s when things go wrong that business people show their stuff.

Switched to this new template today, It looked really neato when first installed, but as usual I have quickly uglified it. The problem is that when I find some aspects of the new template to be utterly confounding, I stick with what I know, and what I know is how to uglify the overall look of the thing. Maybe I should just go back to sitting in front of the TIVO box catching up on “How I Met your Mother”. What is that? Well, it’s kind of like an edgier version of “Friends” with a better looking cast. (Well it’s TRUE)

We are constantly bombarded with advice on how to make our websites better at getting visitors and then getting those visitors to buy something… to wit…

You’ve got under five seconds to convince people to stay on your website… so your headline has to grab them by the eyeballs and compel them to read on!

… Gosh, grab them by the eyeballs? That doesn’t sound conducive to a pleasant shopping experience? Can’t we just hold hands?

I was considering advertising in blogs via the “HA Blog Ads Humor Network” but it’s pay per time period rather than pay per click… I’m concerned that no one will even see our ads, due to the usual “ad blindness” people have plus the content is so darn riveting on some of these blogs.

Take, for instance, “Small Town Misfit” - it’s one of those “Police Blotter” blogs. A recent post was from around here, in Mukilteo, WA.;

Officers responded for a vehicle driving on the running track. The officers located the vehicle leaving the school. The officers saw no obvious damage to the track (but it was dark and covered in snow). The driver was cited for violating his intermediate license restrictions and his father came and picked him up.”

… (By the way, the snow we get around here is white like everyone else’s.) I see no problem with what the kid was doing. There are always joggers in the road, it only seems fair that people should be able to drive on the track.

Lisa C. wants a catalog but I hope she isn’t going to use it for what I think… It’s not a corncob…

“…with the price of toilet paper rising it is always best to get the paper catalog if possible…could be useful in the future…”

I was going to advertise

FREE GRAIN OF RICE WITH EVERY PURCHASE

but Teresa (The “Head Cheese” around here) nixed that idea. I thought it was kind of clever.

I just discovered that (at least in Windows XP) There is an “On screen keyboard” option. If your keyboard acts up sometimes (I had one of light-up keyboards that turned out to be krap) - Try this…
Start menu->Select Run->Type OSK->Press OK

You will get a virtual keyboard , you can use your mouse to type on it. It makes me wonder what other treasures are hidden in that beige box by my knee.

You folks who are googling us for Weird Novelty Gifts, Funny Gifts Novelty Store, Giant Desk Stuff, and stuff like that, we are building an EVEN BETTER cheap novelty store at NoveltyTradingPost.com - Does this imply that we accept other novelties in trade? Perhaps. What have you got for us?