Know Your Audience

We don’t get a lot of catalogues here at Casa Bob y Carlos for a couple of reasons:

1] We don’t order from catalogues, and…

B] It’s 2021!!! There’s this thing called “the internet” which is a catalogue for literally everything.

So, imagine my surprise when I opened the mailbox and found The Vermont Country Store catalogue inside. I instantly thought of jams and jellies and homemade food stuffs and some interesting tchotchkes. Imagine my shock when I opened the first few pages and found Sister Wife Fashions… followed by the terror of a page full of bras. 

Not to mention the section on tablecloths. They’re made of “real” fabric that wipes clean and won’t peel or crack—perhaps the same fabric used in the bras? I dunno, but I do know that Maria, from Carolina, loves the “Happy Checks” and so she used all season long!

But the most egregious error, the error that made me realize that The Vermont Country Store does not know their target audience.

Men in nightshirts.

And rather than photographs of men in underwear—like the kind in the catalogues I used to keep under my bed after my mom had thrown them out—they used pencil sketches of underwear for men.

Pencil-f**king-sketches.

And that’s when it hit me. This isn’t the fault of The Vermont Country Store, it’s the fault of the United States Postal Service, because clearly this catalogue was mailed in 1974 and only now just arrived.

Now, if you’ll forgive me, I think I need some actual cloth, won’t peel or crack, seasonal checked tablecloths.

I mean, if they’re good enough for Maria from California ….