I just opened a checking account at Citibank and immediately started getting email. It was crazy: I'd get four or five emails a day, all about useless crap. Then last weekend they totally flooded my inbox, so I had to put a stop to it.

I went to their website, where they made me create an online account to change my email preferences. I had to pick an eight-character user name with at least one letter and one number, and it had to be a palindrome. The password had to have three letters, two numbers and a symbol, and had to be a homonym for something related to square-dancing.

Then they had me answer eight security questions, including "What variety of fruit does your grandma think she resembles?" and "If you bought a Chia pet, what kind would you get?" It took me three weeks of research to answer all of them, including five long hours of telling a 300-pound woman there's no banana on earth that looks like her.

Eventually, though, I got the account set up, and I clicked on the "Change Communications" tab. I could not believe the email they signed me up for! They listed all these categories, below, and the checkbox next to every single one was checked.

YES! I'd like to be informed whenever you open a new branch in America.

YES! I want to be informed whenever an East Coast Regional Operations Manager is promoted to Assistant Vice President of Divisional Implementations.

YES! Please send me photos of the staff at various branches decorating for holidays with secular mylar displays.

YES! I want to receive hysterical warnings about my finances every time I write a check on a balance that's less than the GNP.

YES! I want to get holiday newsletters that show Citibank executives with geek tans at the beach.

YES! I need to be reminded every half hour to be suspicious of emails that say King Chilifries of the Congo died and left me four hundred million rual.

YES! I want to see any old black-and-white photos you find of white dudes in suits using something called a "drive-thru window."

YES! I'd love to be notified whenever somebody drops another can of pinto beans in the Holiday Food Drive bin.

YES! Please send me photos whenever school groups visit Citibank branches to watch a film about a squirrel who, addicted to Home Shopping Network and tanning salons, runs up $14,000 in credit card debt.