Mail = Fun

I hate Sundays. Not because tomorrow would be Monday (the scourge of all life), or because of religious distaste. No, I hate Sundays because I love mail. And the mail doesn’t come on Sundays.

I love coming home to a full mailbox. Mostly it is bills for my mother, or notices for community affairs. Other times it is a red Netflix envelope, which makes me ecstatic over the possibility of a good movie; I rush through my homework on red envelope days. Equally joyous are the days when an interesting catalogue or magazine subscription finally comes in. I happily curl up in my overstuffed red armchair with a woolen blanket and eagerly turn the pages ohhing and ahhing over the spread.

This time of year is particularly serendipitous for all mail lovers. This is catalogue season. A magical consumer driven time of year when busy parental elves find it convenient to do their shopping from home. I revel in it! Catalogue season begins around mid September. The catalogues start trickling in, their pages ripe with possible gifts for giving or taking. Catalogue sightings become more and more frequent through October, and then in November you cannot go a day without some random company wanting you to buy everything they posses.

Most of these catalogues know our family for suckers and send us preferred customer cards with eye-popping sales. Some are completely at random: do two females sound like the appropriate audience for a John Deer? Maybe in some parts of the country, but not in Saint Louis County. Mom and I would probably pitch a fit if a tractor appeared on our doorstep.

But I am the most gloriously abused statistic of all time: the teenaged girl. You can market to us until Hell freezes over and then you can sell us the latest ice skates. Thank the Lord for my abuse because I am a glutton for purchasing punishment. I sit at the table before a glossy smorgasbord of goodies. The temptations I cannot resist are Alloy, Delia’s, Victoria’s Secret, and Signals.

I sit and go through these catalogues as if money were no object, dog-earing pages or circling items with a pen. I never look at the price because that way I can pretend that it is economically possible to get it (and more importantly knowing the expense of any object has always made me ill). Some little baubles are worthy of crossing my fingers in the hopes that I may get them. An ornate key necklace, a pair of leopard print tights, a screen t-shirt. Other items provide me with intense amusement.

For example Victoria’s Secret currently sells an 800-karat diamond bra. Yes, you read that right. It’s very sparkly, but hardly worth it. I imagine it would be obnoxiously sharp and heavy as well. Not to mention the cumbersome price tag of $6,900,000. Why on earth would you buy a $6,900,000 bra that’s only going to come off in two minutes anyway?!? ‘Cause it sure as shootin’ a’int going underneath a dress. It would snag. It also begs the question of what exactly would you wear with it? There was no 600-karat thong to go with it, and you can’t just wear Fruit of the Loom. It’s all too funny.

Catalogues also have their helpful purposes. When I get asked ‘what do you want for Christmas?’ I can have an answer. But that doesn’t ruin the surprise of it all. No we get too many catalogues for there to be any sense of predictability. I might get that ornate key necklace or the t-shirt, but it’s always a surprise. So, each catalogue gets special care on the off chance my mom might take a peek to see what I’ve marked. It’s the four-month anticipation that I enjoy. I suppose Sundays add to the anticipation, but I still hate them. If not for the denial of mail then for the fact that on Sunday tomorrow is always Monday.