So I’m Kind of a Jerk

Gather ’round children, for a fun story of funness. It all started but a few days ago on a normal Saturday afternoon in downtown OKC…

As some of you know, I host a show and we like to shoot in interesting locations when possible. For the passed few weeks we have been filming downtown because there is always the potential for interesting shots. So we film the show, eat some lunch, and I decide to begin getting footage to make a video for Cities in Minutes. The footage will be turned into a time-lapse film so there was a lot of sitting around to do while we waited on the camera to simply get footage.

It turns out that that weekend was home to a Pre-Paid Legal convention in Bricktown where we were shooting. Massive throngs of suits made their way to and fro, filling the streets and sidewalks with grey (for the men) and various bright colors (for the women who wanted to look serious and cute at the same time).

On our last shot of the day, as we waited on the final ten minutes of film to wrap up, we were approached by two of these suits who asked a seemingly innocuous question that would end up leading to a sales pitch. “Do you know where Mango’s is?”

Neither of us knew, but being the nice people that we are, we offered to help. I grabbed my iPhone and looked up the restaurant. “Looks like Mango’s is about five miles away,” I told the female of the two. She said thanks. Thinking that was that, I turned back to the camera to monitor the traffic that will eventually be sped up to look awesome. But that was not that.

We then were drawn into a long spiel about how awesome Pre-Paid Legal is, and I really don’t know a whole lot about their services, so they actually might be. It’s not for me to say here. The problem is that I really don’t enjoy sitting through any spiel, much less impromptu ones. The main argument given for why we should get this service was for peace of mind, but I didn’t have the heart to tell the gentleman that I sleep like a baby anyway and spending more money on something I probably don’t need wouldn’t help that.

He finally asks if he could have our names and phone numbers, to which I said “No.” Knowing that we would probably get calls about all of this stuff, I instead simply gave him the URL to Pressed & Bound and the show’s email address. So we parted ways.

Fast forward to today. As expected, we’ve gotten a couple of emails regarding the discussion on the site’s email address. Here is one of them:

Hi friend I meet you in okc.saterday with my husband on brickplace you and your friend were taking photos we shared with you the prepaid legal info I did send you some info but i could not get your friends address to go through sorry i would love it if you would share this with him also please go to www.willastarr.greatcaeerplan.com it is good info. thankyou for your time and interest Willa and Rich.

Yep. This person works in a position where they do some sort of legal help; in this case the help is actually pre-paid, but I digress. I am not necessarily a grammar nazi, as forum trolls are oft brandished, but as an adult I find it hard to believe you can work in a position to render any type of legal services when the email you send out looks like that. Well, I can believe it, but I choose not to.

So here’s where the jerky part starts to come in. I replied:

Thank you for sending the email. Unfortunately, at this time we are not interested in the services that you are offering. Please remove us from your email list and please refrain from any subsequent forwarded messages. Also, as a suggestion for gaining potential clients, it could be beneficial to not only spell check any outgoing email but to also use correct punctuation and verb tense. If you would like, we just launched a new service that could potentially help with some of these issues. For more information, see: www.prepaidgrammar.com.

Thanks again and have a nice day.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Did you just buy a domain to pull of this joke?” The answer is yes. “Was it worth it?” The answer is yes. PrePaidGrammar.com is not a “real” website by any stretch outside of it simply existing, but I just really wanted to make the joke. $10 well spent.

I do have some reservations about the email, only in that I’m kind of a jerk for sending it. But I legitimately want them to know that their business probably would benefit from some proofreading. This is actually one of four emails we’ve received from these people, two full of incredible grammatical errors (how do you misspell “again” as “agion?”), one spam-esque template email from Pre-Paid Legal, and one with the subject line Fw: Fwd: Fw: Fwd: FORREST GUMP GOES TO HEAVEN……….. That’s right, ELEVEN periods, or as I like to call it: MEGALLIPSES. So sorry, Willa and Rich, if you read this; I don’t mean to be a total jerk, but get your crap together if you want to sell something to me. Don’t just put people on a mailing list and think that’s cool. You were nice folks otherwise.

I think the most frustrating part is that I’m fairly certain they’re making more money than I am. Oh well, c’est la vie.