The Cure-Staring at the Sea

I first learned about The Cure through one of my older sister's boyfriends. She was the sort of girl who, even though she never asked for it, somehow got guys to give her things like rings, money, cars, and entire CD collections, all of which she gave back at the inevitable end of those relationships. The boyfriend I'm referring to is the one who gave her his entire CD collection, which contained most of The Cure's albums. I remember my sister and I sitting in her bedroom listening to "Love Cats" and "Caterpillar" and pondering what a strange band The Cure was. Of course by the time I got to high school I realized that I was strange and needed more strange music in my life. That's why I gave my one cent to the Columbia House CD club and chose this as one of my 10 free CD's for which I paid nearly the full retail price in shipping.

Side note: is there anyone who ever belonged to Columbia House that didn't get their last order mixed up? It seemed like all Columbia house did was make an offer that made everyone say, "I'll just join, get my 10 CD's and quit." They would give 9 of the 10 CD's with no hassle except for the aforementioned exorbitant shipping charges, but they always screwed up the 10th and I think it was on purpose. See, if you didn't quit the club right after the 10th CD, Columbia House would start sending you the CD of the month, which they would charge you for if you didn't return it right after you got it. By mixing up your last order, by the time you got in touch with customer support and made arrangements to send the mis-shipped CD back, they were already sending you the CD of the month and more than likely taking more money from you than you ever intended to give them. The whole thing was a racket. I don't know a single person who ever joined Columbia House that didn't get their last order screwed up. My friend Todd got Dr. Hook's greatest hits by mistake. I got Kenny G. Todd's little brother got Bobby Vinton or something. My friend Jay opened up six different Columbia House accounts in family members' names so he could make a huge score off Columbia house, and all six of his last shipments were messed up. The whole thing turned out to be a huge fiasco that his parents had to foot the bill for. Anyway, The Cure is great but don't go getting yourself into any 10 CD's for a penny deals. It's a sham.  

Update: Apparently Columbia House still exists, but they sell DVD's now instead of CD's. On their Wikipedia page I found this enjoyable bit of trivia about their rating with the Better Business Bureau, "This company also has an unsatisfactory record due to a pattern of complaints. Specifically, complainants allege receiving merchandise and/or bills for merchandise from BMG/Columbia House for CDs and/or DVDs that they did not order." So my little conspiracy theory isn't so crazy after all, is it?

Rant aside, this album ranks a solid...