Would you like cheese with that?

Dear manufacturers:

Yes, I suppose I should write you all individually, but I suspect this will be just as effective. (Top men!) So, if you all could just pass this around between yourselves, I’d be obliged.

Apple: You know I love you. Really. You make things for me and you market them to me. I am your audience and I have rewarded you for that. I love my computer, and if you could make a keyboard that would withstand a little Chai latte on it, I would spend even more money on that. I’m on my third iPod. I buy television series from you rather than paying for cable and watching commercials. But Apple, why does your iTunes store suck so badly? It’s slow, it’s hard to find things, and it doesn’t remember what I like. It’s almost (dare I say it) like a Microsoft product. You’re better than that. Call me.

Makers of jeans: I realize it’s not really your fault that my jeans don’t always fit. But now that I am shifting my excess weight onto Mischa Barton (holy cow, have you guys seen pictures of her lately?) who quite honestly has needed a few extra pounds for quite some time, I need to wear a belt occasionally. Would it kill you to put two (or even, gasp, three) belt loops on the back of the jeans? When there’s just one in the middle of the back and the nearest ones are on the front side of my body, the belt goes up over the jeans and that’s just not comfortable. Add a buck onto the price and pay your subsistence-wage worker an extra five cents. Really. Don’t make me break out the sewing machine.

Black & Decker (part 1): Your wide-mouth giant size food processor makes great hummus (without garlic). (15 ounces of garbanzo beans just don’t fit into the mini food processor, and I made a big mess to prove it.) But does it really need to have seven pieces to take apart and clean? Worse, all seven pieces have to be aligned correctly to make it work. And if you keep pushing the start button when you think you’ve got them all aligned but don’t really, when you do manage to twist and turn everything properly, it comes on by itself. This thing is borderline dangerous. But again, it does make great hummus.

Black & Decker (part 2): I’ve used your Lawn Hog mower for almost eight years now. It’s not the mower’s fault my lawn looks terrible – that’s because I don’t water consistently and it’s never really recovered from all the trenches dug to put in the sprinklers. I’ve run the mower over rocks, branches, dirt, and pretty much everything else that got in the way, and it’s worked great. The only thing that doesn’t is the mechanism to turn it on. You have to pull that thing against the handle, jam it sideways, and keep it wedged there while you traverse the valleys and hills of my lawn. It’s giving me carpal tunnel syndrome. I’ve taken it apart twice and glued on extra pieces, but that really hasn’t solved the problem. It's things like this that make people buy other brands, and it could probably be corrected without much effort on your part.

Okay, I'm done whining, but if anyone has anything else, feel free to add it in the comments. I'm sure it will be given the attention it deserves.