Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas in the Modern Era



My internet is down and my mail isn't being delivered to my home. Between these two problems I have lost almost all contact with the outside world. I can't blog. (I am writing this from a hotel). I've gotten no Christmas cards this year. My boyfriend ordered and shipped me a Christmas present and I'm pretty sure it's already shipping swiftly back to it's manufacturer. You see I travel a lot for my job and I'm not the best about letting my postal carriers know when I'm going to be gone for days at a time, so they took it upon themselves to decide that if I was going to let my tiny little box get so crammed full of mail that there was no space left for all the junk and catalogs, then I didn't deserve to get any mail at all. Thank goodness I still get my J-Jill, Ann Taylor, and Talbots catalogs, my Lucky Magazine, my Bed Bath and Beyond coupon, and that little packet of coupons everyone gets, you know, the important stuff.

My credit card bill on the other hand never makes the cut. I tried to work around the problem by renting a post office box and informing my credit card companies, other creditors, mortgage bank, and utilities that my address had changed. But one company is still holding out, no doubt in an effort to give me as many chances as possible to pay 30 days late so they can jack up my interest rate to 25% and enslave me for the rest of my working life.

All of this bothered me, but it didn't really get to me until they started messing with my Christmas. Now it's gotten personal. Now it's part of a vast conspiracy to make me believe I will never have a normal life and that no one ever has - or ever will - love me. Aha! but what's a normal life, you ask? Well duh -don't you remember the sitcoms on TV in the 80's? I grew up in the Dynasty age, the Reagan era, when the worst thing that could possibly happen to you was something on an after school special. And I was finally "there". My house was clean, my job was great, my credit was good, and my love life was atrocious - just like on Sex and the City. I had it all.

Did someone find out about my wonderful birthday and all the birthday cards I got? Did they get wind that I was paying my bills on time? I can just imagine someone saying "This has GOT to stop! Great friends, Good credit, birthday cards, and an increasingly popular blog (ok, I can dream), plus a black president!!?? Who does she think she is? A Cosby kid?" (What's disturbing is when I conjure up those words in my head, my mother's image pulls up alongside it - like a Google search). Realistically what might have happened with my cable is that my neighbors moved out and when they did the cable company accidentally discontinued my internet service along with theirs...but then again, maybe that's just what "they" want me to think.