You've Got Mail

It was a pretty ordinary day. The trash came. The newspaper came. At around half-past noon, the mailman came. He delivered 5 pieces of mail. Two were for me, but three were for people I didn't know... people who don't live here. They may have lived here once, but not now. Who were they? Who knows? Who cares? Sometimes I get piles of mail just like everybody else. I just sift through it until I find something that belongs to me. It's all about filtration.

So I filtered and I sifted, when suddenly, the phone rang. I answered. On the other end was some automated, robotic voice recording of a lady who told me that I should call her back about a matter that might concern me. She, or maybe I should say... it... said she could be reached at 1-800 blah, blah, blah, blah; extension blah. I was curious so I called.

A lady answered, but it wasn't the robot on the original message. This one sounded human.

I put two and two together. It was obvious that the original phone message was a trick to get me into thinking that I knew who the robot was, and that it knew me. According to the plan, I'm supposed to call her back and then get snared into talking to some other human lady about winning some kind of a prize in some kind of a contest... or something like that. It's the oldest trick in the phone book.

The lady who answered asked me my name.

"My name?"

"Yes," she replied.

"What's your name?" I asked her. I was trolling. You know. I can play this game too.

"I'm Miss Lane."

Oh how clever. "Hello Miss Lane. So. How can I help you... Miss Lane?"

"I'm looking for a Barbara Collins."

I didn't know anyone named Barbara Collins. "There's no one here by that name."

She was probably thinking, "Oh, a likely story." Actually, it's what she really was thinking. I know how they think. (Bill collectors and cops... you know... they're trained never to believe anything anyone says... ever.)

I drifted off for a moment. I wasn't compelled to commit fully to this particular conversation. I began to think about that big "other" world out there full of people who only exist as expired addresses and wrong numbers. You know what I mean. You could probably fill a whole other planet with just those people. They live in these weird phantom cities... like ghost towns where the only way in is through a little door on a big blue mailbox. They're not real people. They're dead letters and robot voices.

And then there's email. SPAM. Don't open 'em. You'll be sorry. Especially if it's an attachment.

I get quite a few phantom letters and demon phone calls every week. I get twice as many SPAMs. They try and trick you into following them somewhere with an imaginary trail of crumbs, like to some kind of netherworld. Maybe it's so they can make me into one of them. Maybe they want my soul or something. What for?

I've thought about it a lot. You know? Like what's the first step in losing your soul? Wouldn't it be admitting you're whoever it is they say they're looking for? But you know what? My soul isn't free. You want it, you're gonna have to pay for it. And that's after you fight me for it.

So I've got a strategy for deflecting soul-suckers. It's simple. I just throw them off track. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not.

For instance, when I get one of those letters, I put my own magic phrase on the envelope, and then I tuck it back in the mailbox when no one's looking. The first one I tried was, "Not at this address," but it took too long to write and it took up way too much space on the envelope. I had a problem keeping my penmanship neat for that long... the amount of time it took to write it. So I decided to change up and maybe confuse them. I tried, "Moved." "Moved" was good, but it still kind of implied that I was guilty of something because it presumes that I might actually know something about the people they're looking for, and that I actually knew that they had lived there and that they'd moved. Truth is... and you know this as well as I do... that I'd never met any of these people.

The other problem with "moved," is that it just sounds stupid. It sounds illiterate, so I decided it was time to change phrases again. I thought about using "gone," but that was too much like "moved."

I thought about it for a long time. I'd stay up nights thinking about it until finally I thought of one phrase that I really believe has actually never been used before. It was fresh, concise and I think, maybe even clever. I was a little afraid to use it at first. Like what if I met the mailman face to face one morning and he put it all together and realized that I was the one who was scribbling all over those envelopes and then stuffing them back into the mailbox after I fell all over myself trying to explain what I'd written. If he caught me, what would he do? Who would he tell? And then would I ever be able to count on him if I was expecting a big check or something in the mail? What if he was one of them?

I dont know. It didn't matter. This was the showdown. I had to risk it. I needed to win so I started writing, "Not here."

That was good. It was the truth too, wasn't it? Wasn't that the only thing that he could never dispute. They really weren't here. They weren't anywhere, as far as I could tell... or as far as I was concerned. Now it's the mailman's problem, or even better, the person who sent it. It was their problem. So with my magic phrase, I could ricochet junk mail back into outer space. Back to where ever-the-hell those bastards come from, and laugh all the while I was doing it. They could lob those SCUDS... those rubber bullets. I had an A-Bomb. I still hadn't figured out what to do about the SPAM and the robot voices, though.

Of course... talking about the mail... it kind of sounds ridiculous on one hand since half the junk I get is nothing but offers for credit cards... and then some invitations from dating services. For Christ's sake, I'm married. Don't you think they'd know that? I don't know. Truth is, I don't have a problem with my mailman. He's just paying the rent, I suppose. That's if he actually is who he says he is.

So anyway, for now I've got the upper hand. If they still want to play, we can play. The ball's in their court, but at least I have my soul. Think I'll hang on to it for a while.