a consumer's priorities

Dear CVS:

I would like to applaud you for the many efforts you make to enhance the lives of your customers. Your pharmaceutical staff in particular are all extremely helpful, polite, kind, and gifted with excellent senses of humor. I tip my metaphorical hat to you in regard to this phenomenal accomplishment.

I also appreciate the efforts you make to provide consumers with your own generic equivalents of name brand products. While I wouldn't call you, exactly, a cheap date, you're far more affordable than many of the name-brand products you carry. As my pocketbook is tight, I certainly appreciate the option to purchase less expensive, though no less in quality, products.

I must, however, point out the singular reason why I elected not to purchase your product equivalent to Vaseline Intensive Care Body Lotion last night. I was standing in front of the lotions debating on the prices, and noticed your store brand, equal, you said, to Vaseline Intensive Care Advanced Healing. As I like this lotion, but couldn't find the name brand on the shelf, I was deliberating on whether to purchase your brand, or the Vaseline Intensive Rescue, which I hadn't tried before but looked similar. In order to compare them, I picked up your bottle of lotion and turned it to the back to read the product description.

I was, I must confess, disappointed, CVS. Your product description was looking good, until my dismayed eyes stumbled on the words. You wrote, "It's healing effects [do such and such] to relieve..."

CVS, I have a degree in English. But I never needed that degree to distinguish between "its" and "it's." These are, I must say, relatively elementary concepts for professionals. "Its" is an adjective, CVS. A possessive. "It's" is a contraction abbreviating "it is." Clearly your product description contained an error that should have been caught by someone long before it went to print on your bottles. I would have thought that you would have people in marketing paid for just this sort of thing.

In the end, therefore, I chose to give Vaseline my money. Of course you made a profit on it, and I do not begrudge you that; you are, as I said before, an excellent company with a pharmacy that I have yet to see outranked in terms of promptness and service. But I do admit that I expected a little more from you in terms of marketing grammar based on that reputation for excellence.

This is not written to lambaste you or to call you a poor company; I will certainly continue frequenting your branch in Granger. I simply felt obligated to point out an error that denotes a certain lack of attention in one of your departments, and thus connotes a slip in professional language, or even a lack of education, which is extremely unfortunate for you, and, I confess, makes me feel a bit disappointed and even sad.

You may, in future, want to have someone with experience regarding and a vast knowledge of the English language and its rules to oversee what you print on your labels. It's an important facet in your sales.

Yours very warmly,

Sarah