The Smelly Cheese

Not surprisingly Best Buy and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have something in common: They both think that we're all a bunch of fucking idiots.

For those that frequent Buy More... err.. I mean Best Buy, you are probably familiary with their "rewards" system. It seems pretty simple. You buy shit at their store and scan your rewards card with each purchase to earn "points." Those points can eventually be redeemed for "gift certificates." These certificates can be sent by "snail mail," or this new fangled invention called "electronic mail." Perhaps you're more familiar with it's shortened name "email."

According to the best buy reward zone website having your certificates physically mailed will take approximately 6-8 weeks or more specifically some time long enough for you to forget about said certificates. Electronic mail delivery will allow you to, "receive your reward certificates faster." This is where Best Buy and myself seem to occupy two separate realities. I've been sending and receiving "email," for about 15 years and the true beauty of it is that your message is sent almost instantly. The "mail" doesn't have to make any lengthy sojourn across states lines or international borders. The Internet is in fact a virtual network. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE

So you can understand my surprise when, after checking my "points status" at the Best Buy website yesterday, I saw that two $20 certificates were "issued on 01/16/08." I had already my inbox for the certificates and clearly there was nothing wrong on my end of the interweb galactic interface, since I was still receiving plenty of other fabulous offers from Best Buy and their subsidiaries.

What had happened? Was my electronic mail stolen by certificate-hording Internet gnomes? Did I need to approve Best Buy as "my friend," before using the certificates? No. Sadly none of these explanations were true. After speaking with Jeff, a man who was clearly located in the contiguous United States, the culprit appears to be the painstaking process of electronic gift certificate making.

I was unaware that after I've earned enough "reward points," to elicit one or more gift certificates and the Best Buy computer system acknowledges that fact, that's when the real work begins. It's a process that can take up to 7 business days. Boy was I wrong about the Internet. Apparently, sending out electronic certificates isn't the insanely simple automated computer function I thought it was. Of course Jeff, the helpful young man on the phone, couldn't reveal the inner-workings of this magical process so I can only imagine how it all goes down.

It probably all starts in the certificate factory, where a small group of master blacksmiths make hammer out the mold for what will become my certificate. While normally this process would take months, Best Buy makes sure that the blacksmiths have the pure steel version of the certificate ready in 2 days. Then it is sent to a world class artist/calligrapher where the steel is decorated in yellow and blue gold flakes. Real gold flakes, folks. After the hand written information is sealed on with a layer of polyolefin, the certificate is sent off to the Best Buy 3D Supermega Imager 500. This where my gold flaked certificate is rearranged molecule by molecule and eventually shrunk down to a two-dimensional image that can be more easily transported. It's a good thing too, because in order for the certificate to reach my inbox it will have to travel 24 straight hours through the Best Buy interweb underground tubing system.

I guess I should just consider myself lucky if the certificate arrives in one piece. After all, a company like Best Buy would never purposely delay the delivery of rewards, cash or prizes in order to inflate the appearance of their actual earnings.