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Dear Sirs,
I am writing to complain about the performance of one of your products, to wit: Bigelow I Love Lemon Herb Tea. Having recently sampled said item in a culinary context, I am convinced that it is the most unappealing, tasteless, and unprofessional tea I have ever encountered.
Each teabag is enveloped in a package that reads "A year-round valentine for everyone who really loves lemon." Well, I happen to be an ardent enthusiast for that particular flavor, and I can assure you that this alleged tea tastes less like lemon than most electric home appliances. The only way this substance could be considered a "year-round valentine" is by taking the meaning of "valentine" as "a heart," which, if left out in the open for a year, would be encrusted with congealed blood and covered with small, creeping insects.
This tea breaks all previously-conceived boundaries of the concept bland. It invokes in the drinker a level of excitement usually associated with shoelace collections or counting one's own armpit hairs. I notice that the tea is classified as as "Herb Tea" rather than an "Herbal Tea," and that Herb has traditionally been a name denoting banal, tedious people. Another tumbler of the Bigelow corporate lock falls into place.
The outer wrapper of the teabag - whose taste may be compared favorably to that of the tea itself - is colored yellow. One may conjecture that this represents some twisted attempt to conjure associations with other objects that R.C. Bigelow, Inc. regards as the paradigm of tastiness, such as fire hydrants, old math textbooks, and yield signs. A quick glance at the packages of some of your other herbal tea products confirms our suspicions. One tea package depicts a small cat, playfully clawing a ball or mouse or small child, while your propagandistic legend assures us the paragon of beverages is contained within. What sort of baldfaced nonsequitor is this? The only thing a cat and tea have in common is that one dislikes being immersed in the other. Clearly, your marketing skills are equivalent to your prowess at teamaking, which is probably on level with the cat's.
In short, I find I Love Lemon Herb Tea a thoroughly detestable product, and recommend changing its name to I Used To Love Lemon Until I Drank This Herb Tea. In view of its exceeding worthlessness as a viable drink, it is difficult not to inductively extend this condemnation to include the entire product line of R.C. Bigelow, Inc. However, if I were sent a free sample of each of your other tea products, I might be able to constrain my loathing to this particular specimen, and not gallop through the streets of Pittsburgh howling obscenities about your company and your activities, which, as you know, it exceedingly deleterious to healthy public relations.
Sincerely,
Michael Shapiro
They responded promptly, within a week:
Dear Mr. Shapiro:
I must say your letter was one of the more descriptive letters we have received. It is always unfortunate when ever we have a dissatisfied consumer and normally we will send them free coupons in order to try and better satisfy their needs with many of our other products. However, in your case I feel you have reached a point of no return. My only recommendation to you is try Celestial Seasonings, they offer a very nice lemon tea. Perhaps they will have better luck pleasing you.
Thank you for taking the time to share with us your tremendous displeasure. We continually try to improve our products, and each letter does mean a great deal to us.
Sincerely,
Ms. Bigelow
Operations Manager
* * * *
The letter was accompanied by a generous portion of No Tea. I was rather hoping that they'd send me a sample.
The irony is that I'm actually very fond of Bigelow tea products. I really just wanted to see what they'd say.
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