Giving Good Post

Monday, Sept. 8, 2003 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

My father received a piece of mail today from the AARP, the Almighty Association of Retired People. You know, the lobby that will soon rule the world as the baby-boomers age into senility. The mail came here because this was my dad's only permanent address in his wildcattin' gypsy life. It was a membership form for the AARP. On that part of the form you detach and return, with your enclosed $12.50 membership fee, were three little boxes with your choice of "I work full-time." - "I work part-time." - "I am retired." This didn't seem adequate for my father's situation�yes, he was retired, but that hardly tells half the story. So I drew in a fourth little box and next to it I wrote "I am dead."

I almost mailed it.

But then my better nature asserted itself. Some poor schmuck* has to read all these little forms and enter all these little bits of data into the Great Omnipotent AARP Database (the GOAARPDb?). What if the news of my father's death upsets the poor schmuck, or creeps him out? It would amuse me and enliven my day if I was the poor schmuck, but my sense of humor is peculiar to me, and evidently not enjoyed by (or perceptible to) the majority who laugh at Everybody Loves Raymond or Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. I did not mail the form.

I didn't, really.

However... I still had the envelope, the "No postage necessary if mailed in the United States" envelope. Free mail, woo-hoo. What a tragic waste if I didn't mail something in it. Of course, the envelope (and its contents) could only be mailed to the AARP Membership Center, but shit, man! It's free mail! Woo-hoo. My better nature was urging me to put something nice in the envelope for the poor schmuck who was doomed to open it. What could be nicer than a birthday card? (Don't answer that, it's rhetorical.) Everybody has a birthday, even poor schmucks who open mail for the AARP. And who knows? With a great deal of luck, the card might arrive on the poor schmuck's birthday. By happy coincidence, I had a birthday card that fit the envelope perfectly, so with a short prayer to the gods of Serendipity and Synchronicity, I mailed it off.

I was gonna inscribe the interior with something slightly saucy like "Wanna come out and play?" but instead I stuck with the traditional "Thinking of you on your special day." Signed: "Your Special Friend."

~

* Yiddish shmok, penis, fool, probably from Polish smok, serpent, tail.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

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Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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