It’s the first day of fall, Indian Summer is keeping me in the air conditioned building where I work. This allows me to not only get my work done, but also to ponder some of the weird things in life – like this: I work in a television station, and am susceptible to receiving the odd correspondence (emphasis on odd.) Today, a pair of sweet early-twenty-something ladies showed up with a “PSA” (Public Service Announcement.) What it was, was a list of planetary events and missions from NASA and a pair of handwritten letters from the two polite ladies themselves.
Now the NASA list is fairly straightforward. It even lists an event in the year 4,000,000 (!!) when Pioneer 11 should be passing the star Lambda Aquila. The two letters, on the other hand, were amusing – at first glance – then rapidly became disturbing. So disturbing that I ended up faxing them off to the local police (I called first, and was asked to do so.)
I think one line in particular made me think they were going to go have some special cool-aid mixture that will take them to the mother ship behind the comet (you remember that scenario, don’t you?) It said: “Before I leave I just wanted to thank all the people who played a part in my passage into heaven.” Now if that doesn’t get you worried, then I don’t know what will… The letter is signed with the person’s name, their date of birth, the date and time of the letter and, parenthetically, “messenger of God” (with a little heart.) Of course her friend’s letter had it’s trigger phrase (“This is the path to the gates where I will be waiting for you.“) but it wasn’t quite as disturbing.
Now I mentioned that I work in television. I actually work for a PBS station, and the kicker in the letter follows the “Before I leave…” sentence. So here’s a fuller text: “Before I leave I just wanted to thank all the people who played a part in my passage into heaven. Especially to the Public Broadcasting System who gave me all the answers I needed. All the recognition belongs to them. These Angels from the future have been guiding us for years… One just has to open your eyes to see.” This is not the kind of viewer testimonial that we need. I have to wonder what she was watching…
Though I must say that this is the most disturbing thing I have received here, I can not say it was the strangest thing. That must go to the letter from a former “level 3 wrapper wrinkler” whose Mr. Rogers mug started to talk to him. Here’s an example: “The next day it started to use explicit language around the house. I did not want for my fish to hear this obscenity, so I taped this foul-mouthed Mr. Rogers Coffee Mug to a large rock underneath the front porch. I also duct taped his mouth so I could not hear him yell and scream at me.” Neat, huh?
These are the things that make you ponder the oddities in life…
2003-09-23