A Very Sad Christmas Tale :(

Let’s be transparent here for a moment: We don’t like having to advertise on this website. It’s obnoxious, and we apologize for having to do it. In fact, we hate advertising.  However, we hate our day job even more than we hate subjecting you to advertisements, so tough shit (sorry!).

Anyway, as you may have noticed, one of our advertising strategies is to provide a link to Amazon.com in the hopes of collecting a commission at no expense to the reader. We’ve been delighted to find that a lot of you — people we’ve never even met in real life!! — actually take a few extra seconds out of your day to use these Amazon links to make your purchases.  Honestly, we get a lot of hate emails, so it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside when readers make an effort to support us. We really, genuinely appreciate it.

So, obviously, since a number of people we’ve never even met were using the Amazon links, we thought it would be perfectly obvious to our friends and family members that when we wrote, “Please click on this link to Amazon.com right here and buy some stuff so that the Daily Dolt makes money” at the end of every fucking article we have written since October, what we wanted our friends and family to do was click on the Amazon.com link and then buy stuff so the Daily Dolt makes money. We learned over the holiday break, however, that these instructions were not clear to any (any!!! As in, not a single one!!) of our friends and family:

Dolt:  ”Thanks for picking me up from the airport, Dad!”

Dolt’s Dad: “No problem, kiddo.  Oh the police were just awful this time, trying to get me to move from the pick-up zone. It is just OUT OF CONTROL!!! How is anyone supposed to pick up a passenger? I had to keep circling around and around and around because they wouldn’t let me stop. Ridiculous!!”

Dolt:   “Totally.  Anyway Dad, how’s that new computer you just bought?”

Dolt’s Dad:  ”OUT OF CONTROL, I tell you!!  No one can even pick up a passenger!! Look at them there! But yeah, we got a great deal on the new computer on Amazon.”

Dolt:  “Oh awesome!!  So I probably made at least $25 on that purchase.”

Dolt’s Dad: “……”

Dolt:  ”Right?  Because you bought it through my Amazon link? On the Daily Dolt website?”

Dolt’s Dad:  [Blank stare]

Dolt:  ”You know, the little message I put at the end of every article asking people to buy things on Amazon.com through that link?”

Dolt’s Dad:  ”Oh, those little messages are so clever, kiddo!!  But… were we…? Were we supposed to use that link to actually buy things? That never really occurred to us.”

Dolt:  ”YES, you were supposed to use it to buy things!!!!  What did you think it was there for?  You’re supposed to buy everything through those Amazon links.  Please tell me Mom was able to figure this out. “

Dolt’s Dad: “…..”

Dolt:  ”Dad? Please tell me Mom did not buy thousands of dollars worth of Christmas gifts on Amazon without using my link? Dad???”

Dolt’s Dad:  ”Well… you should have sent an email!!  How were we supposed to know? I don’t think any of your siblings knew they were supposed to use the link either. Oh now look at that, the airport police are coming around again. I just don’t understand how they expect us to pick up passengers without stopping.”

Aaaaaand… scene.

Anyway, we’ve moved on now, so we’re trying to use this debacle as some kind of fucking learning opportunity or something. We’re pretty sure that our general audience is a lot smarter than our own family and friends (since there are actually people who buy stuff on Amazon through our links, just not anyone we’ve ever met in real life), but just in case we were not being completely clear before, here’s this message:

Dear General Daily Dolt Readership,

We love you. Unlike our friends and family who are terrible and should feel terrible, you have no moral obligation whatsoever to make your Amazon purchases through our link. However, just in case you actually do want to support us out of the goodness of your heart or perhaps because you take pity on us (pity is fine; we’re not above pity), here is the easiest way for you to do so:

1.)  Click on any of the links on this website to Amazon.com.  Here’s another link to Amazon.com just for your convenience.

2.)  Bookmark the Amazon page you arrive on. (Or you can just return to our website and click through any of the links, but bookmarking saves you a step.)

3.)  In the future, when you’re thinking of buying something online, just use that bookmark to arrive at Amazon.com.  Anything you buy during that visit will be credited to us. (We earn about 6-8% of your purchase at no additional cost to you.  Even if your purchase is really small it still helps because the percentage earned goes up based on the quantity of items sold.)

Friends and family, please expect a scathing, sarcastic email rant joyful holiday message from us shortly. Happy Christmakwazakuh everyone!!!