ed kalinski - mattress salesman

so, last year i bought a big girl bed. very exciting. box spring, mattress, frame. hitherto, i had been sleeping - since college - on a futon. well, 'i' bought the bed with money my parents gifted me at christmas. but i was the one who did it.

anyway, at the Original Mattress Factory Showroom Lenox...there's a bunch of beds. in the front of the store, right when you come in there's a desk with what i would call a 'car dealer' set-up at it. desk with computer that can be utilized by any sales person on the floor. one swivel chair behind the desk. two regular chairs in front of the desk. paperwork. car dealer set-up. and behind the desk, that fateful bed-buying day, was ed kalinski. a guy who had been selling mattresses for 25 years.

i don't mean to be stereotypical, but ed looked like the kind of guy who has been selling something for 25 years. mid-forties (maybe), short-sleeve work shirt (in december), tie, tan pants, side part with evenly trimmed sideburns, wedding ring. a nice guy. seriously. he was clearly a professional and was very nice in showing me the 'low-rent' options and very helpful in my first major home purchase experience. told me about rotating the mattress every couple of months (though some folks rotate once a month...ed didn't see the need for all that), flipping the mattress once a year. that's gonna increase the longevity.

i enjoyed ed's company as much as ed enjoyed mine. he helped me find a bed and i helped him do something other than play computer solitaire. i've had that job plenty of times, and i know that sometimes customers can be a relief. so, yeah. ed kalinski, nice guy.

a few days after my bed was delivered i got a card in teh mail 'from' ed kalinski, thanking me for being a customer and hoping i enjoy sleep more with new bed. it was cheesy. the envelope had that printed but could legitimately have been hand-addressed lettering on it. and inside it was a 'script-esque' italic font. not terribly personal, but the company's nice touch. and then like a week later, i got a happy new year card from 'Ed' too.

it's not that weird to get things like this from companys you make a 'major' purchase with. it isn't. i know this because my parents get shit like this periodically. it's fine. what weirds me out about it is that it's always addressed from Ed Kalinski. not the Original Mattress Factory. the card is designed to appear as though it's coming from ed. and actually, almost a year after i bought my bed, when i checked my mail today i got another missive 'from' ed. wishing me a happy thanksgiving and thanking the universe for elastic waistbands (yup).

now, if the logic behind all this is to make a personal connection (or percieved personal connection) between sales person and customer...it's totally worked. i think more about ed kalinski now than i ever thought possible. seriously.

but, uh...in some ways...the cards make ed look a little worse off than he actually is. because, for me, my first thought upon reciept of card, nigh on one year later, was 'does ed kalinski really have nothing better to do than to send me cheesey corporate greeting cards?' like an ex-boyfriend who just won't leave well enough alone (and i know there are ex-girlfriends like that, and i somewhat reluctantly admit that i've been that ex-girlfriend before), i just wonder why he's bothering. and then i remember that it's probably just that he signed my up for said holiday cards when he was putting my stuff in his computer. and then, further, i remember that i don't really know ed kalinski, that no one could really know ed kalinski. or at least no one that stopped by for 20 minutes and bought a bed from him. and ed kalinski - though he knows which model i find more comfortable, and that i sleep on my side, slightly curled up - doesn't really know me either.

and i can't think of a good ending for this right now.

happy thanksgiving, turkeys! WHA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

that'll do...

on the incessant joys and obligations of participartory democracy

i believe the onion said it best 4 years ago: "a participatory democracy is like the lottery - you can't win if you don't play". they said funny things before this, too. i don't remember those things.

and yet...

i don't get why people don't vote . i jsut don't. man, i was so stoked when i turned 18 because it meant i could both buy cigarettes and vote. two things that i had been wanting to do since forever. and then there's complaints from said people - who, although they didn't exercise their rights still have an opinion. and it's great to be informed and feel a certain way about things, but seriously, if you're not going to vote i don't give a shit what you think about the elected representatives in this nation. because you apparently also didn't give a shit enough to voice your opinion in a platform where (in theory) it counts.

let me put it this way, i am an avid if jaded voter. my first election was 2000 (and we all know how awesome that one turned out). then 2002 saw sonny damn perdue get elected governor of georgia. then 2004, when it felt like the whole country was ready for regime change at home, jack shit happened. my luck with voting has been shaky, at best. but i do it. gladly. everytime. because i can. and because i appreciate that. even if it's a shady vote-counting/electoral process, and even if i don't think america really needs an electoral college anymore, i vote. i make my voice heard.

which...is kind of the point of a true democracy...

anypoo.

vote.

and i hope you vote for obama, but, i'm really just gonna be happy if you vote.

erin made me do it

my lovely friend erin from over at the ponderosa 'jolly journal' has tagged me to write a blog with 7 things you might not know abuot me. and i am powerless to disobey....

1. love, love, love halloween. in spite of all evidence that might imply that i would hate it (spiders, people wearing masks, scary stuff, commercialism), i love it. hated it as a kid, lvoe it as an adult. it's one of my favorite times of the year. it's also when i can get a lot of decorating done, since so many things at halloween are skull oriented. and i love the skulls. which is something that i make pretty clear

2. i am one shitty correspondent. seriously. i mean this for people i never see ever as much as i do people who are an arm's reach away. terrible. and it's not that i don't care about them, i do. the people who i (at the very least) 'keep tabs on' mean a whole lot to me. i am, however, really lazy and miss out on a lot of lovely connections that i could be making with people i already know that i love. this goes hand in hand with my generally sub-par commuication skills. i stutter. i have shitty handwriting and typing. i don't know how to address more than 2 people at a time if it's not on a stage. my body language is really internally focused. and i make the goofy faces. but i'm an avid reader and excellent listener.

3. i walk a really fine line between being a strictly logic-driven person and an intuitive being. because, while i try to do what makes sense, i just...that damn gut feeling pushes me in totally whacked out directions and because it's right so, so, So much of the time i feel like it's logical to follow it even if what i'm doing at the time makes zero sense.

4. i have no clue how to 'follow' a blog on this thing.

5. i believe in the existence of ghosts. real-deal ghosts. and while i'm totally chicken-shit about the thought of entering a 'haunted house' around halloween, i wouldn't think twice about being an amateur ghost hunter. also i read tarot cards. and own two ouija boards. i'm a kook.

6. i'm not very comfortable talking about myself unless i really have a story to tell. this is something that's been a big focus in therapy (which only makes sense, since your therapist is there to listen to you talk about you and hence help you fix you), and i've made a little progress, but man...it's, yeah. so it's weird too that i have this blog and that i periodically post blogs in other spots on the interwebs. my life really hasn't been story-filled lately. though, it has been fun.

7. you know, for being single for like an eon, i really don't get crazy lonely that often. it happens, and there are definitely times when i think 'yeah, i'd like to have someone that i have a different kind of relationship with) but...it's not terrible. this makes me more than a little afraid that i'm just getting used to the idea of being alone forever. but typing that sort of makes me want to cry, so...maybe that's not a real danger... i don't konw. i just, i like a lot of 'me' time.

and now, as per erin's tagging order, i am to tag 7 others to do a simillar exercise in their blogs. here's where i have a difficulty... i follow a couple of blogs, and a couple of people follow this one, but uh...i don't know who's game for this.... so. matt, mary, jenn, erin (wait, no, you already did this), ed, benji, la, randy(?), josh(?), bill(?), assorted others who i'm forgetting or who don't have blogs but read anyway: if you'd like to do this, do it. i'll gladly read what you wrote. just...let me know that you did it. i have no fucking clue how to follow people on this thing....