Irony in an E-mail

So the other day I’m sitting in my office minding my own business when I get an e-mail from the Bolder Boulder advertising a free entry to the race which is completely worthless to me since I’ve already paid $42 for an entry. I was naturally curious about how to get the free entry and whether I could apply it retroactively so I put down my Bloody Mary and started reading all the fine print. (What, you’re going to judge me for drinking a Bloody Mary at work? It was too early in the day for scotch.) The basic premise of the e-mail was that if you open a free checking account at the bank that sponsors the event you get reimbursed your entry fee. (Note: It’s not the bank that I work for but I’m still not going to name it. I fully realize that you could easily find out which bank it is by looking online at the sponsors for the Bolder Boulder, but if you’re anything like me then you’re way too lazy for that and if any of you post the name of the bank in the comments your comment will be deleted. Go ahead, test my resolve on that one.)

Here’s what the fine print said (emphasis mine):

Minimum opening deposit of $50 required to receive the gift. To be eligible for the award, you must open your new personal checking account between April 1, 2009 and May 22, 2009. The $42 award is considered interest and is subject to IRS and other tax reporting. The award will be given at account opening. The $42 award is considered a bonus that can be revoked if the account is closed within 6 months of opening.

If you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on with banks, and in particular AIG, lately then you can see where I’m going with this. If you’re not keeping up on your current events then you can stop reading right now, you mouth-breathing simpleton. The bank is threatening to revoke your bonus! They actually put that in writing. This couldn’t be more ironic if Alanis Morissette wrote a song about it. I also like how they’re clear about telling you that it is subject to tax reporting, kind of like how executive bonuses at banks are now subject to a 90% tax. It’s almost like they’re trying to stick it back to you for revoking their bonuses.

I can totally see all these big execs sitting in a conference room (I picture them like the stodgy old guys in that WaMu commercial) thinking up a promotion that gives the consumer a bonus just so they can threaten to revoke it. “It will be hilarious,” they’re saying in my mind. “Yes, yes. It will be even funnier than that one time when Mortimer put dimes in his penny loafers!” Chortle, guffaw.

Random Friday Musings

On Wednesday I was going to go running after I got home from work because I’d been up late the previous night and elected ‘the pillow’ over ‘the morning run.’ Balloting was done by snooze button. Final vote: Pillow 9 – Morning Run 0. When I got home from work it was below freezing outside and I had already made up my mind that I was going to run on the treadmill. I was only scheduled for an easy 4 miler and I was in no mood to be cold. Then something happened.

It began snowing. All of a sudden I knew I needed to be out running in it. I don’t know why I needed to, I just did. Maybe because I knew it would make me look hardcore, maybe just to show the weather that I wasn’t scared of it. Does anyone else ever get motivated to go running because of worse weather? Maybe this is one of the addictions that I should have warned new runners about.

For those of you who are less observant, I’ve added a Shave Your 5K tab at the top of the page. Right now it just links to the Shave Your 5K post but pretty soon it will link to a table of everyone’s stubble times so that you can see how they’re doing. I’ll have some more announcements about this in the next week or two.

I went running this morning and almost forgot to put on something reflective. It would have been tragically ironic if I’d have been hit by a car after my post on Wednesday, not to mention the hassle it would have caused some poor motorist. Alanis Morissette could have written a song about it.