the price of fame

$209 plus $23 for shipping and handling. Is a nice souvenir worth that much? Or should I keep saving for that HD DVR I still want? Let me explain.

I got an email today with the subject line "News Sentinel article 03/15/07." It obviously refers to the article about my makeover that was published that day. The email was from a guy in Tampa who said he wanted to talk with me for two minutes about the article. Instead of calling, I looked up his company on the Internet. He works for In The News, Inc., a firm that laminates newspaper and magazine articles and mounts them on plaques. Their website says they have a highly sophisticated sales organization. I would say so. Apparently the News Sentinel is one of the 6,000 publications they receive. They saw the article, and found my work email address. This sentence from their site says it best:

If you are In The News, we know it and we make it our business to offer you our custom lamination service. Our sales staff contacts over 8,000 prospective clients each day and last year we produced over 65,000 custom laminated wall hangings, with approximate gross sales of over 10 million dollars.

I wrote back to the guy asking for a price quote. He replied saying that they wanted to go ahead and make the plaque. As a first time customer, I could return it within ten days if I didn't like it or if I can't come up with the $232. Plus tax probably.