Little Story To Tell

Nicole, I have an idea. I'm going to mail myself a package and inside it I will put a note. "I hope you are enjoying my birthday present. Bitch". If THIS package gets stolen I would be so happy.

Sometime last spring people in my building started to experience mail theft. A bill here a credit card notice there and once in a very great while a package would disappear. Dave and I had a set of sheets from overstock.com go missing in April. When I called Overstock to find out where they were I was told they were delivered on a certain date and signed for by ME! Excuse me? Overstock was great and sent me some new sheets and I wrote that one off as a really crappy, annoying thing to happen, but that's life. I hope someone in this building is enjoying their set of 500 thread count 100% cotton, ivory sheets. Mine are rather comfy.

Dave heard a neighbor had some problems with packages disappearing so we quit having things sent to our home address. Schlepping purchases home on the subway was a bitch. In September I went wild and bought Issue 37 of Jane Greenoff's Cross Stitch magazine on Ebay from a lovely woman in the UK. It went missing. I have had an Ebay search set up on this damn magazine since late 2004. I need this damn magazine as it has the first half of the damn Thames Sampler that I damn well want to stitch! Damnit.

I (and I am not the only one) believe that a certain &%^*$$%&* (that’s right, even I can’t use that kind of language) in our building is the culprit. Yes, we know what report to file with the US Postal Service and believe me, we have. In December I posted a notice by the front door of the building asking USPS, UPS and FedEx to not leave any packages for us and to ask for our ID before letting us sign for a package if we are at home. That did the trick and we got all the Christmas packages. I had a conversation with our UPS deliver person where he NAMED the individual we all suspect in these thefts. I merely said, "If anyone tells you that it's okay to leave a package with them--don't do it because I haven't told anyone that!" He replied, "Oh you mean ***** on the * floor?" Yep.

I know that I am not the only one to have spoken with our delivery people and to have told them not to leave packages, but apparently all this was for naught. The week of January 9th saw a new crime wave in the building--by my count four people had packages stolen in a two-day period. That was my count taken in an informal poll on note cards stuck up in the elevator. The note cards lasted less than 24 hours (I wonder who took them down? Hmmmm….) What was stolen from me that last time? It's more like what was stolen from Nicole? Nicole sent me a birthday present. A really awesome birthday present of new dishes for my new kitchen! (If you only knew how much I hate my current dishes you'd know how even cooler Nicole is right now. Dave, I have never liked our dishes. They were a compromise that I detest). Someone named "Door" signed for the package. Door? Who the fuck is Door? I have yelled and screamed at UPS over the phone. I have stalked the lobby in hopes of catching our delivery person. I have written the Queen of nasty letters to UPS corporate. All for naught. What does it take for someone in some agency somewhere to get a clue about this? How many thousands of dollars has this &%^*$$%&* stolen in goods? I know this is New York and the police and other state/federal agencies have a lot to do, but COME ON!!! If you still aren't buying it that this &%^*$$%&* needs to be locked up, here's the part of the story that really pisses me off:

In late November our collection envelopes from our church were stolen from our mail. If you grew up Catholic you know what I’m talking about—the colorful envelopes that are conveniently dated and marked with your name and address so that your parish is assured you pay your dues? St Jean-Baptiste mails its parishioners their envelopes every quarter. I would have never noticed they were gone if a neighbor hadn’t brought one to us that had been put under her door. Our names and address had been crossed through and “Give generously”, “For the birth of Jesus” and “donate: Anonymous Please” had been scrawled on it. This good neighbor wanted us to see it because she knew we would not have done that. Dave and I posted a notice on each floor asking anyone who received such a thing to please bring it to our attention. The morning after this we were at our building’s managing agent’s office when they opened up where I proceeded to break down in tears I was so frustrated. And you know what? Nothing was ever done. We collected five of them from neighbors, one was sitting on the lobby table and I later heard another resident say that she had gotten one too. The managing agent did nothing and I had trusted that he would. Earlier in the fall a notice hung in the lobby had been defaced with ethnic (African-American and Indian) slurs and anti-Semitic statements. I thought that having my religion attacked (no matter how juvenile a fashion it was done in) might merit a response such as the previous incident merited. I would be wrong. It is perfectly acceptable to take Christian, Catholic mailings and write wacko crazy stuff on them and shove them under my neighbor’s doors in an effort to make me look like a religious nut. If had seen the offering envelope for Christmas used like that I would have gone ballistic—more ballistic than I already was. They were the Advent envelopes, people!!! I can curse like a sailor and stay out all night drinking and be a not nice person in general, but you DO NOT use the offering envelopes for Jesus’ birth to slander someone! I’m not putting this on par with racism displayed toward those of African or Indian or Jewish descent or any other minority group, please believe me, but an attack against a religion—ANY religion is just plain wrong.

If I ever catch this &%^*$$%&* who is sitting somewhere in this building wrapped in my overstock bed sheets, reading my UK stitching magazine, eating cookies off of my antique Limoges dish, looking at all the pretty pictures on my remaining collection envelopes, thumbing through our missing mail while drinking coffee out of a mug from THE DISHES--I will fucking take that person down.

By the way—Dave’s an atheist you crazy &%^*$$%&*.

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Jennifer Maureen Gill's Aliases

Your movie star name: Chips And Dip Aelred Your fashion designer name is Jennifer Paris Your socialite name is Guinea Pig London Your fly girl / guy name is J Gil Your detective name is Cat Webb Your barfly name is Vosges French Martini Your soap opera name is Maureen College Your rock star name is Chocolate Light Your Star Wars name is Jenbog Gilnig Your punk rock band name is The Annoyed Pomplemousse