Tuesday, April 17, 2012

I came home to a coconut

I don't think I wrote about it here, but back in February, I got a delivery of flowers at the office. There was a lovely note attached, reading:

Happy Valentine's Day!
[Peanut], you are a super lovely, super geeky, super sexy and an absolutely bad-ass one-of-a-kind girl!!!
I hope these flowers will bring at least a little of the happiness and sunshine into your day that you brought into my life.

From, Your Secret Admirer

 I'll admit, my first reaction was anger. I'd told my boss the day before that if anyone tried to treat this day as anything other than a regular Tuesday, I was going home. I knew these were pity flowers. Some friend of mine felt bad for poor, single, lonely me on this stupid over-hyped couples-centric day, and thought this would make me feel better. I even accused my boss, because he is regularly trying to bolster my confidence and self-esteem (to no avail, but I guess it's nice he tries). He denied it up, down, and sideways, and finally I was pretty sure I believed him.

My list of suspects was pretty short - I'm not close to many people. And I was totally baffled until I realized I've listed my workplace on Facebook, and anyone with half a brain cell could easily look up the address. I finally had one girl at the top of my suspects list, a girl who is sweet and thoughtful and always trying to cheer people up. Feeling ashamed of my earlier anger, and grateful that anyone cared about me enough to think of trying to cheer me up, I sent her a message saying if it was her, thank you. She neither confirmed nor denied, but I went on with my life thinking I'd figured it out. As another friend said cryptically on Facebook, "the exclamation points give it away."

Then, last Friday, which was Friday the 13th if that matters, I got a coconut.

I'd been out all day - first work, then happy hour, then a burlesque show with new friends. One of them, whom I shall call Rosie, came home with me afterward. I was going to change and we were going to go hit some local bars together. We approached my door, and I commented, "there's... something on my table." I have a small table outside my door, on which my faithful gnome keeps diligent watch. We got close enough to see it...

Me: "Is that... a coconut?"
Rosie: *grabbing for my phone* "We have to Instagram this."

Very artsy, right? And yes, I still have a weird Santa candle holder thing on my outside table as well. I don't want my gnome to be lonely! She captioned it, "I came home to a coconut."

My initial reaction was, "You can MAIL a COCONUT?!" I had no idea! Apparently this is a thing people do when they are on vacation in Hawaii. This little fella, however, came to me from somewhere local.

The USPS label showing the postage cost also showed the zip code of the post office responsible, which is in a neighborhood about 10 minutes from me. A neighborhood in which, I am pretty sure, I don't know anyone, nor do I know anyone who has business/work there. What.

The return address is no help - if you look it up on Google maps, it's... the Space Needle. Yeah. So... the Space Needle has A. a lot of admiration for me, B. a shy streak, and C. the ability to mail coconuts from far away neighborhoods. Awww, Space Needle! I like you, too! Just not really in that way... sorry, buddy.

I'm completely baffled. I don't even like coconut. The only coconut reference I can come up with is a Facebook status I posted about a month ago, saying how I want to go to Hawaii this year for my birthday. Yesterday - a Monday - I pulled the labels off the poor mostly-hairless 'nut and brought it to the office so that someone who actually likes coconut could enjoy the damn thing. My boss saw it, and having already heard the story via texts, immediately said, "It wasn't me." I definitely believe him this time. Is this the same person as the one who sent the flowers? Someone new who wanted in on the game (2 months later) after I shared the flowers on Facebook? Who has my home address? What's next??

Also, I'm pretty sure my brain doesn't work right. Am I flattered? No. I'm irritated. Why?

1. "Secret admirers" need to man up and say something. One cute little note is fine, but (sublist!)
  • it should have a pretty obvious clue as to who it's from and
  • the mystery not last very long at all - reveal yourself!
2. I don't actually assume these things are from someone who is secretly admiring me, or even from the same person. I still figure the flowers were pity flowers from a friend, and the coconut is just someone trying to get in on the fun. It's a joke to someone/some people. Possibly even mean-spirited. THIS IS HOW I'M BROKEN, OKAY. (to put quite a fine point on it: I lack the self-esteem and/or self-delusion necessary to believe I have an actual secret admirer.)

I can't help wondering what's going to happen now. Will I start getting random crap from more people, who have now seen my address and think it's funny? Does the person who is sending this stuff know that I'm obsessive and that this whole situation is going to drive me bat-shit insane?!? Does this kind of thing happen to anyone else I know??

4 comments:

  1. You now realize that people are going to start sending you more random stuff. Upside ... you can turn this into a sitcom and sell it to cbs: Sh*t people send me.

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    1. Ha! If that's what happens, I am totally doing that (or at least a tumblr). Great idea. :D

      Just don't address the shit as being from a "secret admirer." I mean, come on! Get creative!

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  2. I like the "sh!t people send me" idea, but yeah, the coconut thing is disturbing. I hope you find out who did it and it turns out to be a good/funny thing.

    On another note, I didn't know you could mail a coconut, but it does make me want to try mailing oddly shaped things as a joke. Don't worry. I don't know your address. :) My friends here in Nashville, however, are going to start getting some oddly shaped mail. I won't do it anonymously though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You could do a "sh!t you can mail" tumblr, & keep track of what you try to send, what you CAN send, & the reactions of the recipients and/or post office employees.

      Delete