Monday, April 04 2011
Among the throng of April Fools gags traversing the internet last Friday, one that received a lot of attention was an email from Famous Smoke Shop with a phony press release stating that customers could now legally buy Cuban cigars. As you can imagine, it also elicited a lot of email. Although it was risky, and some of the mail was downright nasty, as you would expect from such a prank, I have to give credit to the majority of the cigar smokers who took it in stride, and in some cases, even complimented Famous for punking them. Below are some emails that I felt worth sharing. Most came from Famous's Customer Service Dept.
"I am outraged!! You have agreed to do business with Castro!! How dare you!! Not only will I not sign up to buy your wretched Commie cigars, I am finished with you forever!! Take that you profit mongers!!"
"OMFG...lol dude it has been a good 20 years since anyone has REALLY got me on April Fools... Famous fugging owned me today rofl lololol I don't know whether to be pissed or LMAO... hahaha" (Puff.com)
"I swear my blood was boiling when I saw the mail and I came straight here...like "omg! guys! we did it!!" lolol I just woke up so I'll chalk it up to sleepyhead."
"Mr. Zaretsky may wish to rethink selling Cubans. Every dollar that goes to Cuba goes straight to the dictator, Fidel, who is responsible for the murder and imprisonment of thousands of innocent people. When Cuba is free, sell Cubans. 'til then it is immoral."
"April Fools joke was really, really funny. I enjoyed the practical joke and appreciate that my favorite place to buy cigars has such a good sense of humor."
"That Cuban cigar joke was a terrible prank to play on your customers who want Cubans! I am going to sue you for everything for making my heart stop when I saw a joke! APRIL FOOLS! gotcha!"
"The Cuban scam was so not nice. You had me hook line and sinker. Pretty funny regardless although I do feel pretty stupid (which is a normal process for me...)"
- Dave
"Great April fools joke!.... bastards"
"Funny like cancer...I so wanted to try a real Cuban....darn. And I placed my order for ten packs of the Cubans @60/pack. NOT"
I'm even wondering it some of the more inflamed responses were genuine. Suffice it to say, it just goes to show you, 1) that Cuban cigars are still in extremely high demand, and 2) that cigar lovers are, for the most part, really good sports. I'm not sure if they'll be able to top that one next year, but for now I'm just grateful that it went off without a hitch. I don't know about you, but it gave me a greater appreciation for all the wonderful non-Cuban cigars we thankfully have access to.
Oh, one more thing: At about 10:30AM on Friday, the office received a call from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's office asking to speak with Arthur. Arthur, was in a meeting, so he asked Famous Marketing Director, Mike V. to take it. The man began raving at him. Mike asked the gentlemen to properly identify himself, at which point the fellow replied, "APRIL FOOLS!"
(_[GK]__{{{~
