My boss and I just got out of a two-hour meeting with our data supplier's salesmen -- the exact same meeting we have with them every year. It's like Kabuki theatre, but without the thrilling unexpectedness: we complain about the service and they raise our prices. Every year, the same thing: we complain about the service and they raise our prices.

But this time, they threw us a curve ball. As we finished up, the head data-supplier guy reached into his bag and pulled out two small boxes. "Here's a present," he said, "for being such good customers." And he handed each of us a three-pack of golf balls, with his company's logo stamped on the side.

Oh... joy.

Leave it to a sales weasel to assume that everybody golfs, that his interests and his stereotypes apply equally to me and my boss and everybody else he runs across. I'll bet if I'd been a woman he would have given me, oh, something to do with skin care.

It's too bad I didn't know what kind of car they were driving, because otherwise I could have used their present. Y'know, from the roof.