Junk Mail

The envelope arrived in our mailbox, addressed to my wife. Inside was a Special Invitation which read,

Because you were referred to me, I wanted to personally invite you as my VIP guest to attend the nation's #1 financial conference, featuring "5" of America's greatest financial celebrities all live and in person, including Donald Trump's 1st Place Winner of "The Apprentice," Bill Rancic.

Before reading any further, I already had three problems with that first paragraph (which I swear I've replicated verbatim):

1. Bill Rancic is not one of "America's greatest financial celebrities." He's a guy who won a reality show and then essentially disappeared from public view. On the other hand, his appearance on that TV show did make him more famous than the other four guys appearing at this "Celebrity Conference," none of whom I've ever heard of before. I know that the word "celebrity" has already been devalued by reality TV, but when you're even less famous than that, you should be legally barred from using the word.
2. "Because you were referred to me..." is an outright lie. I know for a fact that no one referred us to anyone affiliated with this conference because the invitation was addressed to my wife's maiden name and used only her first initial. The only place in the world she has ever appeared as that identity is in the phone book. Not exactly a referral -- more like cheap junk mail marketing.
3. There seems to be no reason for the number five to appear in quotes in the invitation. Frankly, if you can't even print numbers correctly, I have doubts about any other numerical claims you're going to make.

The kicker is that this financial seminar will take place from 8am to 5:30pm on a Tuesday. Who has that kind of time on a weekday? Certainly no one with a job or children. If you do have that much free time, you're either already independently wealthy (in which case you probably don't need advice from the guy on "The Apprentice"), already retired (in which case you're spending your entire day trying to figure out the government's prescription drug program), or out of work (in which case you probably don't have enough money to play around with this sort of stuff).

On behalf of those of us who live a real life and couldn't be there even if we wanted to, I'll have to RSVP a big fat no -- "5" times.