I think the time may have come to part ways with my Neiman Marcus card...not only have I not bought anything there in about three years...but their emails are leading me to the realization that I am not part of their demographic...and don't have any particular desire to morph into it. What brought me to this? In a word...emails. When a company sends me two inane emails in the space of as many days I start inching towards the "Unsubscribe" button.

Example number one, if you can refer to the sole of a shoe with 4 1/10" high heels and the kind of overemphasized look that screams "wear me for one season because I'm 'in' and then remove me to the back of the closet" as..."a golden sole that lasts over time"...I have to question your sanity. Of course it's going to "last over time"...you're not going to be running marathons in it... If that wasn't enough the same email tells me that I'll receive 12 notecards FREE if I spend $350 online on shoes or handbags. Now, I'm a conspicuous consumer but I have to say that stationary would not be on my list of 'things that swing the deal when I'm trying to talk myself into buying'. But maybe there are hordes of women out there who've been cutting costs on notepaper so that they could blow their load on designer shoes...

Gripe number two, the email for their Christmas catalog...which led me to find...amongst a sea of rather dreary offerings...these life-size replicas in Legos. You send in your picture, and your dimensions, and for a mere $60,000 (not including delivery) you get your very own doppelganger. Which, of course, leads me to ask...would you want to see yourself (or your significant other) in Lego? And, if so, couldn't you buy more than enough blocks for...say...$5,000...and do the job yourself? You'd get a nice virtuous glow from having saved $55,000...the mental exercise of trying to figure out if you need a square bit or a rounded bit for your collarbone...and there'd be plenty left over for life's other necessities, like notecards and lug-soled heels.