By Vera McCarthy

Have you ever realized that there were times when you were asked to make private things public?  Now I don’t mean private things that are so private, that you would never make them public; just some things that you don’t feel necessary to share.  You would never walk up to a person and say “hello, how are you today, how old are you”?  You would never (or should never ask how much money a person makes).  You get the point.

    Well, I went to the store to purchase a cleaning product and found out they discontinued the size needed for the appliance I have.  After checking with the manager, I found out you had to buy a new floor cleaner appliance to accommodate the large size. That was your only option.  I decided to be smart and go on the website of the company.  I would ask them if they knew if any small size cleaning solutions were available and I would purchase them.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

    After reading through all the options to send a message, they asked for my birthday.  Now, I don’t know about you, but have you ever had a cleaning product company send you a gift on your birthday, or at least a card?  I thought, they needed to fill up space so I won’t actually fill in that information.  You could not send a message because it stated that information was vital before you could send a message.  I could not believe it.  Of course you also had to fill in your name, address, country of origin, e-mail, telephone numbers, day and evening and if they could you would probably be fingerprinted as well.

    I looked for a telephone number so I could call them, but apparently that was too private for them to share! Also, range of income was included.

    If I was applying for a loan, I could understand all that info, but this was over the top.  Not that I don’t love my birthday and now they won’t send me a card or gift but I will get over this.  It’s just that we are asked to give personal information so many times that we get conditioned and we should stop and ask ourselves why we should.  We are the Time Travelers and we have that right.

    Because I now feel liberated about this stand I have taken, I am having a 10 day!  What do you think they would have sent me for my birthday?