If
It's Too Loud...
Ah, how fickle are the winds
of junk mail fortune. One
day you’re awash with “pre-approved” credit
card offers and personalized
invitations to visit time
shares in Florida, the next
you go months without receiving
anything addressed more personally
than “resident”.
And then, unbeknownst to
you, in some dark back room
in the seedy part of town
where spam comes from, lost
single socks go and teams
of people dream of different
ways to spell popular drug
names using combinations
of phonetics and numbers,
someone sells your address
and suddenly you’re
on a new list, receiving
a whole new round of junk
mail.
 In my most recent junk mail
personae apparently I have
become old. Very old. Every
day when I head out to the
mailbox I’m virtually
guaranteed to find important
looking letters addressed
to “Lee Totten” urging
me to learn more about the
new Medicare prescription
drug program, inviting me
to meet with a retirement
planner to discover the advantages
of reverse mortgages, or
any number of offers claiming
to be especially for people “of
my age” who have “earned
the benefits” of whatever
it is they’re selling.
Now admittedly my college
graduation was actually a
lot longer ago than I’d
like to acknowledge and,
sure, it only takes two Jagers
to do what it used to require
a half a dozen to accomplish
but still... I know who Hawthorne
Heights are, I have a nose
ring, and I have yet to purchase
a business suit. It’s
not like I’m even turning
40 this year, unlike some
people I know (ahem, Jeff?
Dave?).
But it continues – yesterday
a newspaper called “The
Erickson Tribune” that
seems to be some attempt
to woo me to choose their
retirement community by giving
me news that makes my advanced
age seem like a day at Disneyland.
Sometimes I know right away
how I ended up on a particular
list, like the time I moved
into the same town as my
grandfather and started receiving
all of his Republican party
literature or, conversely,
the time my brother-in-law
bought us a gift subscription
to The Nation and we started
getting all of the liberal
fringe of the Democratic
party mail. (Favorite piece:
a magazine for atheists that
congratulated me for not
being afraid of Hell.)
For the life of me though
I have no idea how I ended
up as a senior citizen. Was
it Wired!? Rolling Stone?
National Geographic?
Oh look – an AARP
membership registration card.
Useful for someone in their
30s.
I know I should just be
patient and that this wave
of junk mail will also come
to pass, ultimately replaced
by some other mistaken stereotypical
assumption of who I am based
on something I bought or
read. In the meantime I’ll
soothe my aging ego with
the knowledge that I am,
without a doubt, the most
informed of all my friends
about the intricacies of
reverse mortgages and the
new Medicare prescription
drug program.
Well, at least amongst the
ones not turning 40 this
year....
This
Essay © 2006 Lee Totten
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