Hate mail

It started in January. I was walking home from the market with my arms full of deeply discounted chocolate Santa Clauses and his now rubbery marshmallow reindeer when I interrupted my journey to check for new mail. I would have probably never even thought about it, in this age of the internet, except I was waiting for an answer to a marriage proposal I’d sent to old girlfriend in Zimbabwe.

So I saw that envelope, all pink and crisp, its delicate color convinced me it must have been from Paula, and my heart began to hammer against my chest. She wouldn’t send a refusal on pink stationary would she? No, she must have decided to finally come back home.

I almost dropped all of my candy in my eager anticipation, but I decided I could at least be patient enough to wait until I got inside. I rushed through the unit gate, tearing my new stain guard Khakis, stubbing my toe on the step I’d forgotten in my haste and finally slammed my pinky in the lobby door while I was searching for the proper key.

I didn’t mind though. All the pain was forgotten in my anticipation of her delicately curled script. As soon as I got inside I dropped my bags without thinking and tore into the pink paper I’d so long desired.

"Roper’s Roofing is having a huge sale!!! Save $50 if you order by Tuesday!!!"

What? Where was my pretty answer? My dreams of picket fences and small children came crashing down and suddenly I realized that my thigh was bleeding, my finger was swelling and my toe was definitely crooked... All for some junk mail?

Perhaps I would have gotten over my irritation if I didn’t hear a long whiney howl from my dog Jed, just then, and see him topple over in the middle of chocolate Santa wrappers, but every minute I spent at the animal hospital while they pumped his stomach and talked about possible brain damage made me that much more pissed off.

I don’t even live in a house! You’d think the apt. # 3 would clue them in! I’m not even supposed to get that kind of solicitation... I signed that new list thing! My mind was racing at the injustice of it all, and I couldn’t wait to get home and call up Roper’s Roofing to tell them how angry I was .

"Roper’s Roofing, this is Karen." came the mild mannered voice of the receptionist, "How can I direct your call?"

"Yes Karen, I’d like to speak to who ever is in charge of solicitation" I calmly requested.

"Umm...? Isn’t that prostitution?" she asked nervously, "we don’t do that..."

"No Karen-- Just let me talk to the manager!" I demanded, hoping she never became a doctor.

"Whatever!" she snapped before hanging up on me.

I looked at the phone in my hand incredulously. How dare that stupid cow hang up on me because of her ignorance!? I hurriedly hit redial and hoped for better luck.

"Roper’s Roofi-- Hey Jeff! It’s the prostitute guy again... I can hang up, right?" then I heard a click and that was it.

Her apparent idiocy had calmed me down a bit by that time, I mean what can you do but laugh at that kind of thought pattern? So I set the phone back down on it’s cradle and forgot about the hated ad from Roper’s.

Forgot about it, that is, until the next afternoon when I opened my mailbox to find an elegant envelope of rich creamy linen, the kind a wedding invitation or important message would be written on, and addressed to me in a delicate script that seemed close to Paula’s beautiful penmanship.

This time my heart pounded almost out of my chest, a thousand lines of love sonnets poured through my mind and I racked myself on the fence as I wondered who wrote "She walks in beauty like the night...".

I didn’t mind the pain though, it was worth it for the letter I was composing in reply to Paula’s acceptance. The throbbing of my testicles was just so insignificant when I could look forward to a lifetime of Paula kissing them better.

I gently opened it this time, not wanting to tear the beautiful envelope, and was really pissed to find written in block letters inside, "Roper’s Roofing is having a huge sale!!! Save $50 if you order by Tuesday!!"

I leapt up the stairs to my apartment and fell on the 2nd flight, I still have a golfball sized dent in my calf to prove it, before racing to the phone and dialing the hated Roper’s.

"Roper’s Roof- Hey Karen..? did you say Jack Drensy was that weird guy looking for a prostitute?... Uh, Huh... HEY JACK!!! WHY NOT TRY SUNSET BLVD!" came a deep masculine voice before the loud click of him hanging up. I sighed and replaced the phone in it’s cradle then went to watch TV.

I got a letter from them every day, in different colored stationary and always with a different kind of print. After 2 more days of it I just started throwing them away unopened and I would have left it at that if not for Paula.

I guess it was about 2 months after the first ad came that I received an email from Paula. She wrote me that since I had not contacted her about her acceptance of my proposal, that she had decided to marry a doctor from her Peace Corps group.

I tried for weeks to get a hold of her, to explain that I never got her acceptance, to beg her to change her mind, but when she finally called me back it was to tell me that it was too late, she’d married Paulo and was soon going to Italy to live with him in his Palazzo. I asked her then, how she had sent her response, and she told me it was in a pale Blue envelope of linen stationary from her mom.

I lost control! Not only had Roper’s caused my dog to be retarded and run into walls, cost me $35 by ruining my khakis, scarred my body and marred the before-perfect symmetry of my toes... They’d cost me my only love and chance at a life of happiness!

I ran to my car and drove straight to Roper’s I walked in and demanded to see the manager, and I don’t remember what happened after that. All I know is that I come to in a cop car and I had blood all over my new Armani jacket, and of course that I’m standing here now facing charges. Can’t you see that I had no control? It really wasn’t my fault!

"Yeah, whatever..." the bored looking public defender said as he watched several prostitutes of questionable gender shake their bouncy breasts. " I guess we could use the postal defense."