I need to go research a thing so I can tell someone that they can't do a thing on a call later today. How much do I not want to do that?

God, I need more caffeine. And Pandora, why did you think Coldplay is what I wanted to hear right now? IT IS NOT.

Yup, it's with the folks who laid me off last year.

I just got an extremely savvy marketing email. I bought a cute apron from Flirty Aprons last year, and occasionally they send me promo emails. This morning I got an email thanking me for my purchase and telling me that I would get an email confirmation when it shipped. Except I didn't order anything.

A few minutes ago I got an email saying "Sorry about the earlier email; it was a technical malfunction where we meant to thank our most recent purchasers, but it went to everyone in our database. To make up for the inconvenience, here's a coupon code for 15% off."

Well played, Flirty Aprons. Well played. (I don't think they actually sent out the first email as part of a marketing scheme to follow up with the lure of a 15% coupon, but I think that the second email will get people to buy more aprons.)

Spoiler: I'm not buying another apron. I already have 3.

Wow, Teppy. I got the same varieties of emails from someone I bought from a couple weeks ago and thought it was clever! I can't remember who it was, have to check my trash mail. Wasn't aprons though.

and thought it was clever!

Oh, I think it's clever, too. That's what I meant by "well played".

And if anyone wants to buy a cute apron and get 15% off, the code is SORRY15.

I looked and couldn't find the emails. If memory serves me it seems the emails were closely timed too. Like long enough for me to notice and think I hadn't ordered anything, then pow, the next one. They both were deleted though.

Yeah, the amount of yellow fever in just the first thirty seconds of that? Makes me sick.

Yeah, the amount of yellow fever in just the first thirty seconds of that? Makes me sick.

I was really taken aback by that, myself.

I thought it was going to be funny. Instead I'm just really, really upset. I mean, how was I supposed to function in a world that's like that? How was I supposed to have any objective sense of my own appearance or character or anything about me, when the reality was, I inhabited a world where *that* was the dominant perception of my race?

That and I apparently stole all your parents' cars. I'm not really sure what that was supposed to be about, just that growing up there was some big thing about me and your cars. I don't know. My dad worked at a steel mill. We always drove American cars.

All those people had never seen or interacted with a Japanese person outside of those contexts. I had no chance.