A Back-to-School Message With a Twist

I work in educational publishing sales. I'm accustomed to receiving e-mail promoting products. These messages arrive at my work e-mail address. As far as I'm concerned, these promotional e-mail missives come with the territory, so I don't mind.

However, this morning I received in a personal e-mail account a back-to-school message. We don't have kids, so how I was chosen for this digital dart eludes me. The sender -- a major pharmaceutical firm -- was not expected. The e-mail's subject line -- Prepare For Back-to-School Season! -- didn't prepare for what would follow.

"The Migraine Minute" shouted the headline. Written into a quaint lead pencil graphic was the encouraging line "Prepare for back-to-school season with migraine relief for adults". Well, I suppose that's more to the point than pitching martial arts lessons, introductory code writing sessions for pre-K students, or career guidance for fourth graders.

"The Migraine Minute" was subsequently positioned as an advertorial: "your source for migraine tools, news, and resources." Now if this major league pharma firm had included the migraine medication in kids' backpacks, that would have been interesting. All an adult reader received from this wacky e-mail was a headache from reading it.