My mailbox is a goner. A five-pound Restoration Hardware catalog took it out last week, and my question is why.
Why does a company need a 992-page printed catalog to show customers every light fixture and faucet it sells in the Internet era? Why does it need to give the postal service workers of America back injuries to deliver tomes heavier than phone books when most will end up in the recycling bin, or worse, the garbage?
A very long time ago — this was the '90s — I used to covet the furniture and rugs I saw in Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. I wanted to move into the catalogs and light the perfectly coordinated candles on the perfectly adorned tables in some dreamlike version of a holiday that never included any people.
Restoration Hardware painted its showrooms in a particular shade of sage green that was all the rage back then. I thought they got me when they sold great nostalgic stocking stuffers like the original Slinky and Yo-Yo.
But a few years ago, they redesigned their stores and turned the lights so low that I can't even make out the furniture anymore. And now they're assasinating mailboxes with a catalog that's supposed to show the store's "lifestyle."
Could a corporation be more out of touch with the American public? We don't crave $800 lamps anymore, we just want to put our kids through college.
We don't want five pounds of paper stuffed into our mailboxes when we could look up anything at all on a cell phone. Trees are more important than a "lifestyle" any day.
We don't need perfectly coordinated candles and perfectly adorned tables. We just need our families to be healthy and employed.
Sorry, Restoration Hardware. It's a bad move to knock out the mailboxes of the very customers you're hoping to attract. You might want to rethink the five-pound catalog and put your money into better lighting in your own stores.
And, by the way, you owe me a mailbox.
