I picked up the snail mail earlier today. It included a few items that we see every other day or so: a 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond, a postcard from the local Ace Hardware, the monthly bill from Target informing me just how much I really spend as soon as I walk through the door which is always more than I intend. I've developed a formula for spending at places like Target. Also included in this calculation is my local Fruit Center Marketplace, a grocery store/fish market/butcherie with wine.
I spend $50 for every ten minutes I am inside, therefore, if I wish to spend only $20 I may only permit myself to be inside the Red Dot for four minutes. No cart, one canvas bag, shopping list with less than five items. Go!
I made this particular Casual Observation after shopping in the Fruit Center with my mother, who had left her wallet on my kitchen counter. Mom is a slow mover, slower with each passing year, and she loves to shop for groceries. Once she had the cart to lean on, my bank account was doomed. Fresh mozzarella and locally sourced goat cheese, PEI mussels, imported olives, in-store baked goods, New Jersey blueberries. Even at my gentle prompting, which was pushing her ever-closer to a temper tantrum, it took us an hour and ten minutes to complete the circuit of the 14000 sf store.
Let's do the math. If 10 = 50, then 70 = 350. Yes, when grocery shopping with my mother in a store where I normally only buy fish and vegetables, I was able to spend my entire month's food budget in just over one hour. Note to Self: do not shop with your mother if she isn't picking up the tab.
Back to the mail. There was another item in the mail which surprised me. It was an invitation from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. And it was addressed to my husband's very long dead first wife. When my husband first moved back to this part of the world, it was from the home he had shared with Pam, so we were not initially unnerved to receive mail for her, after our first move, especially from the very persistent folks in the Alumni Affairs office at her Alma Mater who seemed very unwilling to admit defeat. And then we moved again. As I have learned, when one moves correspondents are sometimes left behind. Hopefully, these are of the advertising variety but sometimes they are old friends who never got the Change of Address Notice. And then there is the other variety. The scarier folks. The ones that find you no matter how well you think you have covered your tracks. It's the people who send elder housing information packets to my mother at my address, even though she has never lived here, because somehow they know I have an elderly mother, and the mortgage lenders anxious to convince me it would be a good idea to use my home as an ATM, and the Columbia House Record Club. Now we add to that list the fine people at the Rock Hall who, in their efforts to reel Pam into a visit to the Rock Hall included a personalized (for her) web address on the outside of the packet.
Really.
Several points. #1 Pam has been dead for more than 20 years. #2 and 3 She never lived here, nor was her mail ever forwarded here. #4 She died about a minute after Sir Tim Berhners-Lee posted a summary of the World Wide Web at alt.hypertext newsgroup. Consequently, #5 she never had an email address or a website. #6 She died before there was a Rock Hall.
Which makes the Ted Talk I heard yesterday that much more prescient.
http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_how_to_think_about_digital_tattoos.html?qsha=1&utm_expid=166907-23&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks
I might visit the address that the Rock Hall printed on the package out of curiosity except that I'm afraid my own beloved Mac might think I had suddenly morphed into her and begin to address invites to me as her. Nor do I feel I can contact whoever sold them the list with her name on it because then they would know the mailing reached an actual person. And how did her name get on that list? At our address? How long can we reasonably expect that our loved ones will be receiving our mail after we have moved on? Is 22 years too long?
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