Acme Dearest

Dear Sirs/Madams;

I am writing you this email to register my extreme dissatisfaction with a product I recently purchased from your company. Namely, the Acme Rocket Sled tm which arrived on my doorstep in a gigantic wooden crate Thursday last.

First, fair is fair. I compliment good service when I get it. I would not have you believe that I do nothing but spend my days online complaining and cataloging injustices; far from it. I do know how to acknowledge the positives and I like to think that I can give credit where credit is due. I must commend your trucking company upon their speedy delivery. I had barely posted the order to your web site when your truck arrived seemingly seconds later. I do not know how you accomplished this feat.

Bravo sirs! Bravo!

Now onward to the meat of this email.

My first disappointment occurred upon opening the box and finding the rocket sled in a disassembled state. I ask you, why use such an enormous crate - at least 10 feet by ten feet by my estimates - if you could not fit a fully assembled rocket sled inside? What a terrific waste of timber!

I proceeded with the unpacking post-haste. I was famished and my dinner was rapidly headed toward the vanishing point on the horizon - leaving a telltale jet contrail from his rapidly moving feet (you would really have to witness this phenomenon to believe it).

Whereupon I encountered my second disappointment of the day… your assembly manual.

All I can say is, "Huh?"

You sirs, would be well advised to take note of AND emulate Ikea's illustrated idiot-proof assembly manual before making another attempt at the English language. I take great umbrage at your willy-nilly use of the word "insert" as a noun and a verb. Let me tell you where I would like to insert your insert!

As I was engrossed in your arcane assembly instructions - in a language which can only be described as English by employing a serious suspension of disbelief bordering on psychotic delusion – my dinner returned.

Startling me.

After some time and a generous helping of Acme Brand codeine I was able to decipher enough of your manual to complete the assembly and I waited eagerly to try out my new rocket sled.

When my dinner passed my hiding spot, I activated the ignition. As I gripped the handlebars, the Rocket Sled took off with such sudden and precipitous force that my arms stretched out to a length I had not deemed possible.

A split second later, the rest of my body followed with such violent slingshot-like action that I found myself unexpectedly astride the Rocket Sled sitting backwards.

I regained control over the Rocket Sled and briefly caught up to my dinner.

Just as I was about to grab him, my dinner veered sharply following a bend in the road.

What occurred next can only be described as a catastrophic failure of your product to perform in an expected manner.

Although your Rocket Sled comes equipped with handle bars, there is no way to actually steer it.

Did you know this? Have other customers experienced this behavior? Are the handle bars a mere adornment?

In any case, I tried with brute force to steer but was unable to change direction due to your poor product design. It was at this point that I also discovered that the braking system on your Rocket Sled is not merely faulty but nonexistent! I cannot believe that I am the first customer to notice these glaring oversights in your design!

In retrospect, I suppose I should consider the next occurrence a small bit of fortune in an otherwise dreadfully dismal product experience. The forward progress of the Acme Rocket Sled tm was abruptly halted when it slammed into the pinnacle of a large sandstone butte.

Yes, the rocket sled stopped.

I however did not.

For a brief moment, I believed I might catch my dinner sans sled.

Unfortunately, by this point I was fully in the grips of that harsh bitch physics.

With nothing more to control my trajectory or forward progress, I was unable to avoid the cliff face in my path. My body slammed into the cliff with enough force to leave a hole in the shape of my silhouette in the side of said cliff.

I truly believed my travails were over. Sadly, they were not. Your rocket sled had other plans for my broken and battered body. You see, the Rocket Sled was still turned on and running; the rock pinnacle had only temporarily impeded its progress.

I include the following description of subsequent events only to underline my chagrin at the extreme malfunction of your product. 

Employing the "but for" legal standard, I suppose I could find Acme responsible. However, I can see now that these events were not in every case "reasonably foreseeable" by you or the rocket sled's designers. Pardon me if I still feel miffed at you and your product as I am in excruciating pain and low on my painkiller prescription.

I had passed completely through the solid rock and was now turned around suspended in mid air above a rather deep canyon. The rocket caught up with me a few seconds later striking me in the midriff. I believed that my luck had changed and I would be saved from plummeting into the canyon. What I had failed to notice was that the opposite wall of the canyon was slightly higher than I was.

After the impact, a rather large flat rock toppled off the edge of the cliff above me and fell into the canyon below. I soon followed.

I landed on the flat rock and lay there dazed. A heart beat later the Acme Rocket Sled tm landed on the opposite side of the rock catapulting me skyward and directly into the underside of a large outcropping of rock at the top of the canyon. Again, I fell onto the flat rock on the canyon floor propelling the rocket sled upward. It's all a bit hazy – as this process was repeated several times.

Returning home, I called your 24-hour customer-service number and spent 20 minutes listening to The Girl From Ipanema before speaking with a surly representative who identified himself only as "Yosemite Sanjay." After explaining my situation, Sanjay put me on hold where I spent a further 30 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying robot voice (Keanu Reeves?) telling me to look at your website. I alleviated the boredom by playing with my fractured tail for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. Somewhere around minute thirty-one I was disconnected as Sanjay attempted to transfer me to a supervisor.

I took this opportunity to change some of my bandages and scarf down another handful of Acme Oxycontin tm before redialing.

I called back and was eventually transferred to Sanjay's supervisor, Elmer. Once again I was put on hold with your annoying music. I really want to commit violence upon the body of the person responsible for producing a Muzak version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, by-the-way.

After a half hour more of this, Elmer came back on to tell me that he was "Vewy Vewy Sowee" which was in very poor taste as this is how I must have sounded to him with my swollen lip and fractured jaw! When I confronted him about this, he hung up on me.

Really, if you people used incarcerated felons here in this country as customer service representatives - the way Microsoft does - this sort of thing wouldn't occur.

I am almost ashamed to admit that again I find myself transferring funds from my Paypal account for the purchase of:

One Acme Catapulttm, 

One Acme Anvil tm, 

One Acme Super Magnet tm, 

One box of Acme Steel Pellets tm and,

One extra large bottle of your generic oxycontin.

Please don't disappoint me again or I shall cancel my account and take my business and prescriptions elsewhere.

I mean it this time.

Sincerest Regards,

Wile E. Coyote
Super Genius
Precariously Balanced Rock
Table Mesa, Arizona