A strongly worded letter.

Dear Lady of Golden Framing and Gifts:

Where, oh please tell me where, you learned your awesome customer service skills. I mean seriously, you really know how to treat a customer like a queen.

The fact that you identified with me as a fellow Master's degree holder in English really established that special customer-proprietor bond. The fact that you really cared that because I worked so hard to get that Master's degree, I needed the biggest possible frame for it. That astute observation was really the things that marketing genius is made of.

Thanks, also, for your immediate and pressing concern for my office decor. You're right, I really do need to make sure I show off that degree in its best possible, and most matching-est, light. Yes sirree. And in order to further engage in shameless self-promotion, don't forget.....it really needs to be big. gigantic. huge. expensive. People who work with me need to know that I mean business with this big bad-ass english degree.

Once I divulged that no, as a matter of fact it would hang in my home office and, consequently, didn't need to be fancy, you immediately concealed a snarl of judgementalism and moved on to more, um, home-oriented options. Based on your tasteful suggestions, I'm sure you have a lovely home.

I thought I would make it easier on you, since you were working so hard to please me. I thought I would give you a break and start making my own choices from your extensive collection of stylish frame and mat options. But alas, anyone with superior customer service skills and framing abilities knows that the customer should make no decisions and expend absolutely no energy in selecting the perfect frame job. That certainly must explain why you told me what I picked out would look, and if I must quote your English Master's degree-inspired choice of words, "stupid." You wanted to pamper me and let you take care of everything. Silly me.

Well, then. Certainly I wouldn't want those years of hard work to look stupid. But, lady of, ahem, pleasantly plump stature and superficial charm, my gorgeous frame-deserving Master's degree doesn't necessarily imply that I'm rich. You must've inferred such, for when I requested I keep the job under $50 you sniffed and rolled your eyes with a haughtiness that only your pitch-fork yielding mother could love.

Pardon me. I must have mistaken my selection of a plain-jane wooden Target-esque frame and boring forest green mat for the next coming of Christ. You replied with such confidence in the quality of your artistry that your frame jobs are never lower than $80-$100. Wow, you must really be skilled. Looking around at some of your samples, I must say, what am I possibly thinking putting such a defining document in such a simple dressing. Ornate, that's the key to beauty. Swoops, etchings, shine, pretention. 5 mats, 3 colors. Glare-reduction glass. That's what it's all about.

Before I smile politely and leave your country-cluttered, potpourri-scented, garage-sale of a store, listen up:

I don't want my big bad-ass english degree gussied up in one of your hideous gilded frames.

I don't want you telling me my ideas are"stupid."

And I most certainly don't want to spend more than 50 cents in your place of business.

This is what I really meant when I said "Ok, I believe I will take this job somewhere in my price range, thanks so much."

Good luck to you,

Rosanna W. Turner

P.S. I was a floral designer for over 10 years. Let me tell you, the cheap silk flower arrangements you try to pass off as the "gifts" part of your business namesake are really what's "stupid."