Alert!!

Dear Weather.com,

I loved you. I really did. You had weather alerts, and would send them to my phone to let me know when snow was in the forecast so that I didn't have to watch the weather all the time, and knew when to bring my computer home to work from home. I was in love! You were so helpful!

Something happened though, and I don't know what it was. It started this fall, and at first it was only mildly annoying, but it has grown, like an enormous hangnail causing a canker sore: your weather alerts come ALL the time!

I understand that alerts could come more often when severe weather is in queue, and with a severe winter, there could be multiple alerts. But you've gone beyond merely alerting me. You're stalking me; you're assaulting me with the battery of your incessant alerting.

One alert that there is a flood warning - fine. Two, one to differentiate between the immediate warning and the overall "watch", I can understand that too. Even sending them periodically once per day as a reminder - this makes logical sense to me.

But you have sent me 36 text messages about the same warning within the last 24 hours (between 4:43 pm 1/16/11 and 4:50 1/17/11). That is more than one per hour, and I will tell you that the worst part of it is not one to two messages per hour. No, it is the 5 in a row at 12:21 am, followed by 10 in a row at 3:57 am, followed by another at 4:09 am...

Yes, I am still aware it may be flooding, but these conditions do not change significantly once they start, and I do not need momentary updates, on par with 10 per minute. Mind you, you are also sending me messages through my phone weather app as well....

You have assaulted my sleep for the last time, annoyed my co-workers who are used to my system downtime text message barrage for the last time. It's time we parted ways, and because I suspect you won't understand the meaning behind my simple "unsubscribe" request, I wanted to take some extra time to make it clear just how much your actions have bothered me, and those sleeping in the same home.

Please. Don't call. Don't write.

For god's sake, don't fucking text me.