Friendly Reminders

You know what bothers me (today)? "Friendly Reminders."

You know what I'm talking about. You've all gotten those emails, calls, or letters, and don't pretend you haven't. They usually go something like "Just a friendly reminder to blah, blah, blah... at blah blah time and blah blah place..." They also may or may not have an inordinate amount of smiley face emoticons in them - just to remind us exactly how friendly a reminder they really are...

The expression, though, is a misnomer. There's no such thing. Any reminder is inherently judgmental, because it assumes that we can't remember our appointments or our own schedules, and that whomever sent the reminder is in a better position to warn us of the impending date or time than we are. It's a real slap in the face, and that's not what I was tought friendship is really all about. Friendship is about trusting, not judging. And trust includes believing that your friends can keep their appointments without "friendly" nudging from you. Especially when those friends have a Microsoft Outlook calendar on their computer, a Blackberry with reminder functions, and a collection of post-it notes on their desk that rivals some of the best Fall leaf piles ever raked.

It also inherently signifies that there are "unfriendly" reminders, because the opposites/ good vs. evil theme is rampant in our soeciety. We eat this stuff up like candy! I guess the unfriendly reminders could include thing like past due notices, phone calls from bill collectors, and more likely, that day-before-your-doctor's-appointment call from the really mean lady that works at your doctor's front desk. (You all know who I'm talking about. She and her army of secretary clone dopplegangers infest doctor's offices worldwide. They're everywhere. I think they even have a "Nasty Doctors' Secretaries Without Borders" organization helping tsunami victims out over in Indonesia... "Yes, Mr. Ginandjar? You have an appointment tomorrow morning at 10 to remove that palm tree from your ear. Don't be late, or you will be charged a $25 cancellation fee!")

But, seriously, is there really a need to create a category of friendly reminders, so that you now have unfriendly reminders, neutral reminders, AND friendly reminders? Do we really need all these categories? It's just more stuff for me to compartmentalize in my mind, more facts to memorize, another rule of social etiquette that I'm required to strictly adhere to, lest I get scolded by someone with clearly better-delineated social graces than yours truly, and I really don't have a whole lotta room left for anything else. Every new fact I learn starting right now pushes out a piece of Dukes of Hazzard trivia that's been stored for decades, and I don't want to lose that because its sentimental value is immeasurable. (How else do you think Cooter's Place has stayed in business as long as it has?!) As it is, I already can't remember who was older, Roscoe or LuLu...

Not to mention those reminders are another email I need to delete out of my inbox, another voicemail to listen to and then delete off my phone, or another letter I need to tear up and throw away from my mailbox (that may or may not include personal info someone could use to steal my identity, take out credit cards in my name, and books 20 trips to Tahiti on my dime, and that may or may not have led to the demise of a poor, defenseless tree...)

No animals were harmed in the creation of this rant. - editor