[OT] Amusing junk mail

In the regular post yesterday, I received a piece of advertising mail
which had this warning on the outside of the envelope:

"Joyce Wermont,

Termite swarms may be headed for the San Francisco - Oakland -
San Jose area around 4/24/2006. iIs your home protected?/i"

It was not intended as a joke. There was nothing tongue-in-cheek about
it. And I do realize that a termite infestation for real is not at all
amusing (although, being a renter, I don't worry about it, either).

But how did they get an exact date? One that's already past, no less?
I've been looking out the window, watching for the swarms ever since.

Joyce

PS - Shiral, are you paying attention? They've hit your area, too!

wrote:
In the regular post yesterday, I received a piece of advertising mail
which had this warning on the outside of the envelope:

"Joyce Wermont,

Termite swarms may be headed for the San Francisco - Oakland -
San Jose area around 4/24/2006. iIs your home protected?/i"

Joyce

Well it's obvious your clock is wrong! It's not May, it's April! And of
course they know... just like they know the killer bees are heading in this
direction ( remember back in the 1970's when we were all warned about them?)
Remember John Belushi playing a large killer bee? who died without any help
of killer bees, I might add. Then again, you might be attacked by
landsharks... so don't answer the door!

Jill

jmcquown wrote:

of course they know... just like they know the killer bees are heading in
this direction ( remember back in the 1970's when we were all warned about
them?) Remember John Belushi playing a large killer bee? who died without
any help of killer bees, I might add. Then again, you might be attacked by
landsharks... so don't answer the door!

Exactly. Talk about fear-mongering. I guess a scared population is a
population that will fork over cash. :-/

Joyce

wrote:
jmcquown wrote:

of course they know... just like they know the killer bees are
heading in this direction ( remember back in the 1970's when we were
all warned about them?) Remember John Belushi playing a large killer
bee? who died without any help of killer bees, I might add. Then
again, you might be attacked by landsharks... so don't answer the
door!

The bumble-bee man from the Simpson's is patterned after him!!!


Exactly. Talk about fear-mongering. I guess a scared population is a
population that will fork over cash. :-/

Joyce

While volunteering at the Humane Association this week, I happened to go
next door to the shelter (the buildings are connected, HA has no restrooms,
soe we use theirs, and I usually stop & play with a couple of kitties while
en route), and I overheard some of the workers talking about a caller that
was panicked about this bird flu, he (or she) wanted to eradicate all the
birds in his yard. I didn't listen to all of the conversation, but I got
the impression that they thought the caller was insert cuckoo bird-calls
here.

funny thing, just a bit later in the day, I was listening a local radio
talk-show, and they were talking about a horribly done made-for-TV movie
that was on the night before about.....The /Impending/ Bird Flu
Pandemic.....

I guess the caller thought it was a documentary eg

"Magic Mood Jeep)" wrote in message
...
wrote:
jmcquown wrote:

of course they know... just like they know the killer bees are
heading in this direction ( remember back in the 1970's when we were
all warned about them?) Remember John Belushi playing a large killer
bee? who died without any help of killer bees, I might add. Then
again, you might be attacked by landsharks... so don't answer the
door!

The bumble-bee man from the Simpson's is patterned after him!!!


Exactly. Talk about fear-mongering. I guess a scared population is a
population that will fork over cash. :-/

Joyce

While volunteering at the Humane Association this week, I happened to go
next door to the shelter (the buildings are connected, HA has no
restrooms, soe we use theirs, and I usually stop & play with a couple of
kitties while en route), and I overheard some of the workers talking about
a caller that was panicked about this bird flu, he (or she) wanted to
eradicate all the birds in his yard. I didn't listen to all of the
conversation, but I got the impression that they thought the caller was
insert cuckoo bird-calls here.

funny thing, just a bit later in the day, I was listening a local radio
talk-show, and they were talking about a horribly done made-for-TV movie
that was on the night before about.....The /Impending/ Bird Flu
Pandemic.....

I guess the caller thought it was a documentary eg


I'm not in a panic yet about the bird flu, I'm still dealing with the
nerves from West Nile. Granted it isn't the cause of the day right now.
But still. The first diagnosed infected bird in our area died in my back
yard.

Strange how diseases rise and fall in popularity. While we do what we can
and try not to walk in front of any moving vehicles.

Jo

wrote:
In the regular post yesterday, I received a piece of advertising mail
which had this warning on the outside of the envelope:

"Joyce Wermont,

Termite swarms may be headed for the San Francisco - Oakland -
San Jose area around 4/24/2006. iIs your home protected?/i"

It was not intended as a joke. There was nothing tongue-in-cheek about
it. And I do realize that a termite infestation for real is not at all
amusing (although, being a renter, I don't worry about it, either).

But how did they get an exact date? One that's already past, no less?
I've been looking out the window, watching for the swarms ever since.

Joyce

That's funny. Kind of dumb, too; doesn't matter what the ETA of the
dreaded traveling termites is, the only threat to your home are the
ones that are already living in colonies underground in your
neighborhood. Unless I have my termite trivia wrong.
Killer bees, fire ants, and now traveling termites. What will we have
next.
Playing on people's fears is kind of a sucky way to promote a service
though. We got gigged for a thousand-dollar fire alarm system once,
because we had small children and the salesman knew exactly what to
say. Oh well. But a couple of $10 First-Alerts would have probably
given us the same protection.
Sherry

I don't know anything about American termites, but I've *never* heard
of termites swarming (like bees) before. Winged termites do emerge en
masse during warm weather - these are the alates (literally "winged
ones", but referring to the reproductively-capable male and female
termites) who emerge from the natal (birth) colony, mate outside the
nest and then set off to make new colonies. Hardly a swarm, but an
impressive emergence of biomass nonetheless.

It may be that what your advertising was referring to was an observed
emergence of alates in April and a fear that the emergence of
millions, or tens of millions, of termites looking to start new
colonies is potentially bad news for your home. Nice story, but not
necessarily true. Apart from anything else (like pure random chance,
etc), it take quite a while (months, I think) for a pair of founding
termites to breed enough workers to be either visible, controllable
(by chemicals) *or* a problem to your home.

Just MHO
Tish

On 12 May 2006 22:04:05 -0700, wrote:


wrote:
In the regular post yesterday, I received a piece of advertising mail
which had this warning on the outside of the envelope:

"Joyce Wermont,

Termite swarms may be headed for the San Francisco - Oakland -
San Jose area around 4/24/2006. iIs your home protected?/i"

It was not intended as a joke. There was nothing tongue-in-cheek about
it. And I do realize that a termite infestation for real is not at all
amusing (although, being a renter, I don't worry about it, either).

But how did they get an exact date? One that's already past, no less?
I've been looking out the window, watching for the swarms ever since.

Joyce

That's funny. Kind of dumb, too; doesn't matter what the ETA of the
dreaded traveling termites is, the only threat to your home are the
ones that are already living in colonies underground in your
neighborhood. Unless I have my termite trivia wrong.
Killer bees, fire ants, and now traveling termites. What will we have
next.
Playing on people's fears is kind of a sucky way to promote a service
though. We got gigged for a thousand-dollar fire alarm system once,
because we had small children and the salesman knew exactly what to
say. Oh well. But a couple of $10 First-Alerts would have probably
given us the same protection.
Sherry

wrote:

Playing on people's fears is kind of a sucky way to promote a service
though. We got gigged for a thousand-dollar fire alarm system once,
because we had small children and the salesman knew exactly what to
say.

Oh, that reminds me of a time when I was about 10 years old, and
a salesman came to our house to promote some sort of fire-safety
thing, or maybe it was fire insurance. He showed this horrible film
about a family trying to get out of their house during a fire. I was
a pretty high-strung kid with a lot of phobias and anxieties, and
the minute I heard about smoke being poisonous, I flipped out. I'm
sure my parents didn't buy anything - all I remember is my father
asking the guy to leave, that he didn't see any value in what the
guy was selling, and all he managed to do was scare the children.
Go dad!

Joyce

Tish Silberbauer wrote:

It may be that what your advertising was referring to was an observed
emergence of alates in April and a fear that the emergence of
millions, or tens of millions, of termites looking to start new
colonies is potentially bad news for your home. Nice story, but not
necessarily true. Apart from anything else (like pure random chance,
etc), it take quite a while (months, I think) for a pair of founding
termites to breed enough workers to be either visible, controllable
(by chemicals) *or* a problem to your home.


LOL! I just liked the whole "coming to a town near you!" tone of it,
combined with ominous horror implications. I mean, the termites are
coming to Oakland?! How did they plan on such a specific destination?

Joyce

wrote:


LOL! I just liked the whole "coming to a town near you!" tone of it,
combined with ominous horror implications. I mean, the termites are
coming to Oakland?! How did they plan on such a specific destination?

Joyce


My bet is that they threw the names of various towns in a given area
into a hat and then drew one. Just y our luck they chose your area this
year. They've been busy little termites over here for a long time now.

Pam S.