Dreaming of Zihuatanejo

A few days ago, I’d mentioned interesting spam snail mail. Ladies & Gentlemen, we have a winner. Yesterday’s post included a postcard, addressed to ‘Resident’.

Front: All black. Letters in white saying “friends. with benefits.”

Back: “Good to have friends to hook up with. Even better if they can hook you up with a really sweet pad, right? That’s why you should have "ABC Properties"* on speed-dial. They can get you into "XYZ"^*, their premier condominium development for people just like you. Single. Successful. Terribly good looking. A community that fosters neighborliness, some more than others…if you get the drift. Call us. Better yet, stop by for poolside cocktails and appetizers every weekend, or drop in our sales office at /<Dallas address>^*”

(caps or the lack thereof, as well as punctuation have been reproduced faithfully from said card)

I simply stood at the mail room, mouth agape for a few minutes, before I remembered to move the lower jaw back to the ‘close’ position, and started walking back towards my apartment. I set foot in the house, and the first thought that actually goes through my head - “Easwara! Enna karumam!” I burst out laughing at my own reaction. I don’t know why this shocked me any more than spam email – after all I’ve had everything offered to me from Cialis to the latest Paris Hilton video. Seeing something in print always deepens the impact.

Then, I started thinking about it. (Obviously!) As nudge-nudge-wink-wink as the mailer sounds, what exactly are they offering, I wondered. And like retirement communities have minimum age limits, would this community (ha! and what a “community” it must be!) have “look” limits? After all the mail claims the place is full of “good looking people”. And like me, too! Gee, shucks, I sure am flattered! I think. For, if the rest of them are going to look anything like me, just what kind of place is this??? In fact, they don’t know anything about me, do they? Other than the fact that I can apparently afford the rent at my current apartment. They don’t know my gender or my sexual orientation. Or, this being Texas, am I supposed to assume that all will be “normal” and staunchly hetero? And what the hell is a community like this doing in Texas, anyway? As an old New Yorker article put it, isn’t Dallas supposed to be the buckle of the Bible belt? I probably have as many churches in the 5 mile radius around my apartment as there are in the whole of Jerusalem!

And how can you have a property developer actually developing something like this? And spending money on direct mail marketing, which I know from my previous job, is the most expensive form of advertising? Aren’t there laws about these things? And more worryingly, what about my roomie’s or my activities in the recent past has gotten us onto this list, for crying out loud? I usually get mailers from KERA (PBS TV / Radio in Dallas) asking for money. My roomie gets discount coupons from Osh Kosh BGosh. What have we done to besmirch our good names with the list people? I thought we were good, solid temporary residents in this country – listeners of BBC news, and looker-outers for good shopping deals. When did we turn into swinging-from-the-chandelier-party-animals, who are so into “neighborliness” that we might want to move to a special community so we can, well, be “neighborly” all the time!

Or is it just my dirty mind that insists on seeing more than what’s on offer here? Perhaps they really are just a friendly bunch of people, barbecuing together, sharing recipes for apple pie, enjoying the occasional picnic by the pool, even borrowing the cup of sugar or kaapi podi… And while they’re engaging in these perfectly innocent activities, just happen to be “single, successful and terribly good looking.” Just like in any ad. Shiny, happy, beautiful people. Who love their neighbors. After all, didn’t Moses or someone ask us to?

I will assume that the latter explanation is correct. The first one is too alarming… Am certainly not planning to seek the truth by attending the poolside cocktail do.

^*Disguised, because I do NOT want to spend my time & space putting out an ad for these guys