Thursday, May 19, 2011

Creepy at the Cornell Post Office

My office keeps a PO Box at the Cornell post office, despite the fact that every one wants it closed.  We have a new PO Box in a much more convenient place, but apparently a certain very important client still sends us mail at Cornell and refuses to change that.  There are all kinds of juicy and aggravating details to the story but it's not important to this story.

In any case, I was checking this PO Box this afternoon, which we dis-affectionately call "corny".  The box had a lovely travel offer to some far off place with palm trees.  Upon stepping out the door, a guy I judged to be in his early 50's waved excitedly and exclaimed "There you are!" as if he'd been looking for me.

Surprised, I walked over.  He was standing behind the company car, which is adorned with advertisements for the many things my office does, medical massage for car crash victims, mediation, general attorney services, etc. 

"I understand you're a pain expert!" the man exclaimed.
"Ah, well, not me.  But the company I work for is." I explained.  "Would you like a card?" I handed him a card.  "We specialize in car crash victims." I continued, thinking we might have a conversation about his incessant neck pain.  I should have known by the way he took the card, surprised, and murmured an "uh, thanks" that this wasn't where he was leading the conversation.
"And I see you do divorces..." I followed his glance toward one of the decals on the car.
"Oh, yes.  The office manager is an attorney, although divorce work he tends to do outside of the office.  In the office he does more work with the car crash stuff."
"Well, what about marriages?" the man asked.
"Oh, yes.  He does marriage too."
"Well, that's not what I mean..." he laughs thinking I've just encouraged him to marry our male office manager. "I mean marrying a woman. I need to marry a woman."
I'm starting to cotton on, but it seems better if I just don't.  "Yes, he does marriages between men and women." I concur.
"I mean... well," he leans over to glance at my left hand "I see you're not married."

Immediately that creepy feeling crawls up from my shoes, blasts me in the face and slithers down my heart.
"Have a good day, Sir" I say hurriedly and head for the car.

I wish I'd said "that was seriously creepy" but I don't think of these things that fast.
I feel tricked and taken advantage of all at once.  And the fact that he was looking at my hand for evidence of marriage, makes me wonder what other "evidence" he'd found visually searching the rest of me.  There comes in the feeling of being used for someone else's purposes.  Ick.

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