Return to Sender

WomenEverywhere

2009-09-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Prized Customer,

It's as if you grow dumb simply by entering the store. It's the sales. That's what does it. It's the promise of half priced items that weren't worth the full price to begin with. That gets to you. It messes with your head and makes you an irrational creature who I'd hope would have manners and common sense and maybe the slightest bit of respect under different circumstances. It's like kindergarten all over again.

You like to skip lines and then pretend as if you can't hear me yelling or see me frantically motioning until finally it becomes obvious that yes, I'm looking at YOU and pointing to the back of the line. It's that neatly organized row of twenty or so people waiting patiently while clutching huge piles of clothing. Those are other customers, not mannequins. Don't play dumb.

You refuse to play well with others. You pick fights with me over prices that I have no power to change. You pick fights with other women for picking up the last XS baby blue tank top from the shelf. When I tell you that you can take no more than five items into the dressing room, you question me. Am I absolutely sure that it's only five? Well, it's not like I work here or anything.

You are messy and destructive and rude. You bring your Venti Caramel Macchiatos into the store just to leave them hidden quite carefully behind piles of clothes in such a way that ensures that I won't find them until you are long gone. You love to pick up ten different shirts from ten different locations, decide not to buy anything, and leave those shirts all balled up in a corner somewhere.

You have a shorter attention span than the kids you're dragging all over the mall. You ask for items from the back and then disappear so that I not only have to search the back for some obscure piece of clothing, but then I have to search the store for you. This is not a game of hide and seek and if I emerge from the back with the requested item in hand, you better not tell me that you've changed your mind.

You never stop asking questions. Can you get these jeans in a larger size? Why not? Why can't you buy the clothes off the mannequins? Where is a better store? Why is the line so long? Why is the music so loud? Can you see the manager?!

I fold piles of clothes into towers of perfection, edges straight and size stickers aligned. And for what? I do this knowing full well that you will come along to destroy this pile in a matter of minutes. And when you do? I have to be there with a smile on my face and a "Ma'm, may I help you with your size?" to prevent any further damage to the stack of whatever is currently under attack. The answer to that question is usually no.

Here are a few things you should know, now that you can no longer boss me around:

To you and all of the other women out there who tell the salesgirl that you don't need help with a size, please realize that I don't actually care what your size is. I am not here to judge you. I am here to help you because by helping you, I'm mostly helping myself. I can prevent you from messing up the perfectly stacked piles if I carefully remove that shirt from the bottom rather than letting you yank it out. If you still think that it's okay to mess up the pile for the sake of keeping your size a secret, think again. It isn't that difficult to see what size you grab from the pile. If you grab the shirt on the bottom, you're an XL. The middle? A large or a medium. I know the shelf that has the size 7 jeans from the one that has the size 3's. I know this because I fold those jeans at least ten times every shift. It doesn't matter what shelf you grab those jeans off of. I know your size.

When I say, "Because it's store policy", nine times out of ten, it is not store policy. It is something that I made up to get you to fuck off. Because it's store policy sounds legit. Ten times out of ten, it works.

When you come out of your dressing room to pose in front of the mirror and in front of me, I am not jealous because you can afford to buy so many different outfits. I am laughing on the inside, laughing at how horribly wrong a pair of XS shorts look on an XL body.

The customer is not always right and I am not afraid to tell you so. That is a myth that you've been fed all of your life. It's kind of like when your boyfriend tells you, "No honey, you don't look fat in that outfit". He's wrong for saying it and you're wrong for believing it. The next time you convince yourself that the old Customer is Always Right myth gives you the right to boss me around, think again.

Sincerely,
J

NOLA

2009-09-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

Dear New Orleans,

I miss you.

Bras hanging from balcony railings, voodoo shops nestled between bars, scantily clad women advertising cheap alcoholic beverages, live music blaring out of every open door, karaoke making brave souls out of those who wouldn't do so under normal circumstances, drunks wandering the streets in search of even more alcohol to quench a perpetual thirst, a smoky haze clinging to everything -- all so familiar for Bourbon Street.

Contrast the craziness of Bourbon Street with the calm of the Garden District-- runners clutching iPods as they jog next to trolley lines on St. Charles Street, people walking dogs on sidewalks, an abundance of azaleas in various shades of pink growing in almost every front yard, Mardi Gras beads wrapped around tree limbs and hanging from power lines, little kids blissfully swinging between monkey bars on playground sets that seem worlds away from the destruction that is, in actuality, only miles away. The desolation that is Ninth Ward.

I miss beignets, cafe au lait, and hot chocolate at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. I miss the way the French Market used to be, when it was more about art and jewelry than fake designer purses and cheap sunglasses. I miss Po-Boys at Mother's, pralines at Aunt Sally's, red beans & rice at just about any restaurant you wander into.

Even after the storm, you're the only city that feels like home.

Proctor & Gamble

2009-08-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

Dear P&G,

As technologically innovative as your Always feminine hygiene product line may be, I can no longer bring myself to purchase them when that time of the month comes around. It has nothing to do with the packaging or the price or even that set of ads where you use a woman plugging up a leak in the bottom of a boat with a tampon to demonstate the absorbency that your products offer. As offensive as that was, it did not turn me off quite like your slogan.

Where do you get off telling women to have a happy period? Have you ever a woman on her period? Let me tell you that at that time of the month, "happy" is a concept that most women can't grasp. A period is not happy. It is four to seven days of bleeding from your nether regions. It's four to seven days of avoiding white pants and cute underwear, lest either be ruined. It's a bloaty, crampy, puffy, PMS-y four to seven days. And no matter how well we take care of our skin, periods wreak havoc on our faces with terrible breakouts.

And let's not forget those times that your period sneaks up on you if you aren't one of those women who marks every day of your cycle out on a calendar so that she knows exactly when she's ovulating, when the best time to get pregnant is, etc. She's got it down to such a science that she might as well be able to tell you the precise moment when the egg pops out. But if you're not one of women, you sometimes find yourself in a bind. There you are, in the middle of a mall or a movie theater without anything to stop the flow. Do you know how embarrassing that is?

Does this seem like a particularly happy time to you?

Whoever came up with the Have a Happy Period campaign is in serious need of a reality check. That's like saying, Have a happy headache! Or have a happy flu!

I appreciate the LeakGuard Core and the Dri-Weave absorbency. I am in awe of the MicroDots and all the other little innovative extra touches that make your pads stand out from the rest. Seriously, those Flexi-Wings are legit. BUT, it goes against my very nature to support any company with a slogan as ludicrous as Have a Happy Period. Until you change your slogan, I think I'll switch to Tampax. They have those cute commercials where Mother Nature tries to ruin vacations by bringing a "monthly gift" and their slogan (Outsmart Mother Nature with Tampax) is much less offensive. You just lost yourself a customer.

Sincerely,
J

Mother, Father

2009-08-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Parents,

You finished making your wills not too long ago.

Normally, I would have something funny or witty to write about the occasion. I might speculate that you left the most precious of your possessions to your favorite child which, if you haven't figured this out already, is me.

But, I don't like thinking of you two as anything other than immortal. You can't die. Not now. Not ever. There is so much more that you need to be here for. My college graduation. My wedding, if I can trick someone into marrying me. Your grandchildren, if that someone can convince me to reproduce.

I remember discussing this at the dinner table awhile ago. I know how it works. Everything has been taken into consideration -- if one of you dies before the other, if both of you die at the same time, if all five of us die at the same time, and so on and so forth. Even my death was considered in the making of this will. I can barely grasp that concept.

A will makes everything seem so final. It's as if now that it exists, you're allowed to die. And I know that that's complete nonsense because plenty of people die without creating wills, but I can't help thinking it. I don't want your money. I don't want the house or the car. Your physical presence matters more to me than any one object. You two, as living, breathing human beings with pulses and heart beats and whatnot. I can't even imagine a world without you two in it. Until I figure out how I would function without the two people who brought me into this world, please don't leave it.

Comcast

2009-08-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Comcast,

As an Internet Service Provider, you fail. There is no side stepping the issue. It's what I imagine the early 90's must have been like, but worse. I have to position my Macbook just so in order to get any sort of connection. At my desk? No connection. On the kitchen table? Only slightly better. You know where it works best? In the closet right under the hook where I hang my belts. A fraction of an inch to the left and the connection is gone. I should not have to try to cram myself into the corner of a closet whenever I want to check my e-mail.

On the rare occasion that your service does work? It's a slow and precarious ordeal. Pages take forever to load and just when you've finished reading one e-mail and are ready to move to the next, the connection is gone. This might as well be Dialup version 2.0. The only difference is that you don't play that screechy sound as you're starting up. But you know what? I LIKED that sound because it was reliable. I could count on the Internet to work after I waited for that sound to stop. Sure, it would take half an hour just to load one page, but at least it worked.

As a Cable Provider, you also fail. The Cable goes out almost as frequently as the Internet does. Sometimes the screen freezes and then stretches out into strange kaleidoscopic patterns with barely discernible images of the show I was just watching. One minute, I'm watching the episode of Grey's Anatomy where McDreamy comes back to Seattle Grace to do surgery on Izzy. The next, I've got a still of Patrick Dempsey's eyeball situated on top of Katherine Heigl's elbow. Watching television is like trying to listen to a scratched CD. Missing my favorite line of Fight Club the other day was the final straw.

Yes, I have to put up with your terrible cable service because it is somewhat affordable.

Yes, I have to put up with your sucky Internet service because you are the only provider in the area.

BUT, that is where I draw the line. No, my family does not want to purchase your phone service. I can just see it now. We switch to Comcast and then one night, our house is broken into. As the bad guys rummage around downstairs, I lock myself in the bathroom with only the home phone and a few snacks to hold me over until the cops arrive on the scene. I dial 911 and what do I get? Nothing. Not because the burglars were smart enough to cut the phone lines. No. It's because Comcast has decided not to work at that very moment. And then I die.

So fuck off Comcast. We actually like using our phone on a regular basis, thanks very much.

Sincerely,
J

Looking for TinaVegas Craigslist

2009-08-19T19:29:00.001-07:00

Dear Looking for Tina,

Hi. My name is Tina and I think I'm the girl you are looking for. I'm not too sure, though, because I have trouble remembering most of the events leading up to last night. You see, this morning I woke up in Montevista Hospital with no ID, no money, and no recollection of who or what brought me to the ER. My theory involves a circus clown, a maid from the Bellagio, and a plastic bottle of Tequila.

The doctors say I'm lucky to be alive. They say that I had enough crack cocaine in my system to take out a four hundred pound gorilla... or Lindsay Lohan. One of my kidneys is missing, but that may or may not be related to a tough situation I got into three years back. Sometimes money gets tight, you know?

Both of my eyebrows were shaved off and in their place are permanent marker outlines of what I'm assuming my eyebrows looked like prior to that unfortunate incident. It is still unclear as to whether I was attacked or did this on my own. Sometimes I get my beauty tricks from street walkers. They really know their stuff.

They say I arrived in nothing but a pair of clear platform heels filled only with water. I wouldn't normally be so concerned if not for the fact that the goldfish that used to swim around in the bottom of those platform heels are missing. Somebody stole my goldfish! The nerve of those damn hussies.

Anyway, to make a long and hazy story short, I am told that the unidentified man who brought me to the hospital kept calling me Tina. The only other thing this guy said was that he was somebody's roommate but had just moved out.

I don't know if you ever talked to your Tina much, but maybe if I tell you a bit about myself, you'll be able to identify me. I'm originally from Minneapolis, but I moved out west to become an actress. The money ran out when I got to Nevada and I've been in Vegas ever since. I figure that I might be able to get an acting job here someday. If you know any agents or directors or anything, please let me know.

What really made me connect the dots was the description in your Craigslist ad. My name is Tina. The girl you're looking for is Tina. I was with a guy who was roommates with someone. Your Tina was with a guy who was roommates with you. Plus, the guy who I was with moved out of the place that he was staying. The guy your Tina was with moved out too! If that isn't enough evidence, I don't know what is.

Now if you don't mind, I have to get back to practicing my lines. If I ever wanna make it in this business, I've got to learn how pile the powder up properly so that it doesn't get so messy.

Sincerely,
Your Tina (Maybe)

Just one more thing... you mentioned that you need to see your Tina again. If this is about the missing cocaine or the circus clown, I'm not your Tina.

CassieCraigslist

2009-08-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Cassie,

I am very intrigued by your Craigslist classified ad. What a novel idea! Seeing as I am so busy with my job, I simply do not have enough free time to say my own prayers. I don't even go to church on Sundays anymore! This fact, combined with your well placed advertisement that I must have stumbled upon by the grace of the dear Lord (praise Jesus!), have led me to decide to utilize your services. I've never really considered outsourcing my prayer work, but I think I'll give this a shot.

How many prayers do you think it'll take to get me on God's good side if I haven't prayed in about, oh... let's say, ten years? That's a lot of Sundays to make up for. I hope you're up for the task because I really don't want to spend eternity burning in hell. I am the illegitimate child of a fairly well known politician and a Vegas showgirl, so I have my fair share of problems. You'll have your work cut out for you.

First and foremost, I need you to pray for the results of this latest paternity test to come in positive. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm one of those girls on Maury who tested a bunch of men to find my baby's daddy. Little Aquaniqua is now thirteen years old and I don't know how much longer she'll go on believing that I downloaded her off the Internet. I've tested seventeen men and I just can't face the shame of going on that show again. As much as I want to hear Maury say, "Davonte, you ARE the father," I am just too traumatized to go back.

I need you to pray for Paula Abdul to come back to American Idol so that we can all stop pretending to care about what her next big move will be. I need you to pray for Tyra, too. Pray that somebody, anybody, starts watching her talk show.

Also, you'll definitely want to pray for my sister. She's 16 and she's pregnant but MTV rejected her application to be on the show and she is devastated! She has always wanted to be a reality TV star so she really needs all the prayers she can get.

Do you accept wire transfers from offshore accounts?

Sincerely,
J

Oh, and can you pray for Jon and Kate, too? I really want them to get back together.

Anorexic Princesstwitter.com/bones4me85

2009-08-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Anorexic Princess,

This letter will likely fail to resonate much with you. Like just about every other human being, you probably resent the efforts of those who tell you what you should do just because they think they know what is best -- the people who offer up advice loaded with phrases like body image and self-esteem. Let's be honest here. Does anybody like advice offered up at random? Unasked-for advice is like the inevitable conclusion of every bad infomercial, the part when the lady offers to double your order at no extra cost if you call within the next FIVE MINUTES!!! Because who could possibly resist double the amount of a product that they weren't going to purchase in the first place?

In any case, my point is that you have no reason to follow this advice, much less read this letter, but I'm going to write it on the off chance that it might matter in some small way. Hey, at least you know someone is reading your tweets, right?

I'm no authority on anorexia or any other eating disorder, for that matter, but I've been there. Not to the exact place where you are at this moment, but a place just like it. A place where looking in the mirror is more distressing than it is comforting. At a place where you feel more frustrated and vulnerable than anyone can possibly fathom. What you are doing to your body isn't as much about being skinny or pretty or loved as it is about feeling like you are in control. Celebrating the fact that you had only pills and cigarettes for breakfast? Obsessing over rigorous exercise regimens? It's what allows you to stop feeling vulnerable and start feeling invincible. You can't control what other people say to you or about you, so you religiously maintain control of the one thing that you do have complete power over.

You criticize other anorexic Tweeters that you've deemed inauthentic because their eating habits don't live up to your standards. You resent it when your husband brings home pasta. You use cigarettes to stave off hunger and diet pills to keep off the pounds. You feel a sense of desperation when you're "stuck" at a party with junk food and you dread family dinners. You hope that today will be a day that you won't pass out.

You are trying to choreograph a life that refuses to dance. For once just live life as it is and not how you've carefully planned it to be. When life comes at you full force, those plans won't always be enough to protect you. Life isn't something that you can always control nor is it something that you should necessarily try to control. It's not always fun. It's not always convenient. It doesn't always play nicely and it certainly doesn't share. It's that kid in your kindergarten class that everybody disliked for picking his nose and smearing his snot all of over the best toys. You know the one. He ruined it for everyone. It's like Kelly Clarkson on the cover of September's Self magazine and every rail thin model that graces the inside of a woman's magazine. That impossible standard they set? They ruin it for everyone too.

To the models in those advertisements, to the situations that don't go your way, to the arguments that you lose, to the bad hair days, and to that god damned Infomercial lady, all there is to say is Who gives a fuck? They are all just things that you have to accept. Things that, as you're well aware of, can't be controlled. One day, all of the illusions about those models and their skinny bodies will break down into a million little pieces and you will realize that caloric intake and body mass index and diet pills aren't as important as having a body that you don't have to starve to maintain.

Let's stick it to the Infomercial lady by throwing away those pills she convinced you to buy. You're worth more than that.

Sincerely,
J

Attention Whore(s)Everywhere

2009-08-16T20:05:00.001-07:00

Dear Attention Whore(s),

Everyone wants a book deal, the seventh spot on the Real World cast, a slot on the six o’clock news, or a segment on 60 Minutes. Everybody has a life story and a desire to share it with the world. There is a vast chasm between you and the rest of the population and it is your job to fill it to the brim with your stories.

Every song you listen to becomes part of the soundtrack to your life. Every person you pass by on the street is merely an extra in the movie that you are the star of . You’ll be planning the sequel before you know how the part you’re living right now ends. You want your life story to be the feature film that sells out in box offices across the nation. Forget fifteen minutes. You can’t condense the tragic or the shocking or the horrifying bits of your life into anything less than an hour and a half.

Choosing friends is like casting for the right Best Supporting Actress - the girl who will listen to the stuff that nobody else gives a damn about, the one who won’t upstage you when you’re having your moment because that’s how much she cares. And then there are the people who hide behind the scenes, often not by choice. The parents you’re embarrassed of or the friends you don’t dare talk to in public. They are the makeup artists and the cameramen and the costume designers of the world -- anyone who has to wait until the end of the credits to see their name. They help you conceal your flaws with the flourish of a mascara wand or the perfect camera angle. They’ll cover your insecurities with sequins that dazzle so brightly that the ugly lurking beneath it all never becomes visible.

But every person is the main character in his or her own story. You are somebody else’s stunt man or extra or obscure crew member. You are not the only one with a story or the desire to share it.

That guy standing at the intersection with an "Anything Helps, God Bless" sign has a story. He is more than his flimsy cardboard sign, more than the fifty cents you just gave him to go buy what you assume will be drugs or alcohol. There’s a story written into the wrinkles of his forehead - those lines that crease with worry every time the clink of the change dropping into the bottom of his cup isn’t loud enough to hide the growling of an even emptier stomach. You deem him unworthy of your five dollar bill because you assume that it’ll go to a bottle of something that you don’t approve of. Who’s to say that you’ll spend it on something better? Everybody has their vices.

That girl with the vacant look in her eyes, the one who sits behind you in English - she’s got a story, too. She’s got her teenage pregnancy and subsequent abortion. In the back of her closet, she has the baggy clothes that she wore in the beginning, while she was still weighing herself and her options daily - considering adoption and baby names at the same time.

He has his divorce. She has her broken heart. You have your tragedy and I’ve got mine. All we need is an audience, a theater full of people munching popcorn while watching our movie or a girl sitting on a couch with our story propped open on her lap.

Our life doesn’t become worthy until it becomes published. Until we can lament the fact that the events on page 37 led to that incident in the last paragraph of page 46. Until we can read newspaper reviews about how “breathtaking” or “gut wrenching” our story is. Until there is a barcode with a number stating that ten chapters of our life story amounts to $13.95, plus tax. Let’s make it tangible so that we can turn the pages on it.

We stretch and twist and distort our stories for entertainment value. We add details where none existed before and we remove truths that aren’t convenient. Life becomes a series of exquisite fabrications, one after another. We no longer write stories to relive moments. We live to write stories. We try to transform dull, tired lives into major motion pictures that would do better as Lifetime Originals. We want to live lives that people won’t fast forward through, but we do so at the expense of living the life we were meant to live rather than the one that we’ve scripted and directed.

This isn’t vanity. It’s human nature. And it’s coming to a theater near you.

About

2009-07-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

**I am currently on vacation. I have a few posts scheduled to be published while I'm away, but don't count on much. The design (featuring a larger postcard) has also been postponed.

the blog...

Nobody writes letters anymore. We condense all of our thoughts and feelings and frustrations into text messages and tweets. The 160 character limit is keeping us from saying how we really feel. Return to Sender is simply a blog where I write letters, dozens of them -- some funny and others serious. I write letters to people on Twitter, MySpace, and other social networking sites as well as people who've posted advertisements on Craigslist. Simply put, Return to Sender is a collection of letters written by someone who doesn't like to compromise or condense when it comes to saying exactly what she feels.

the page...

The design for Return to Sender took about 9 hours to create and not because I created something that looks really amazing. Amazing would've taken me about 9 years. I am no graphic designer. I settled for decent.

I have taken one real art class in my entire life... in fifth grade. I am similarly inexperienced when it comes to HTML/CSS. Therefore, what would take a tech savvy person about one hour took me nine. I used Adobe Illustrator and MS Paint.

This page is Firefox and Safari compatible, but it is not IE compatible. If I knew how to fix this, I would. But I don't. So I won't. Switch browsers? FF > IE anyway.

The postcard that contains all of the entries is too small for my (and probably your) liking, but after nine hours, I was ready to put anything up. I am currently working on a redesign with a bigger postcard. It should be up soon. You can avoid this problem altogether by signing up to get my RSS feed.

the writer...

19 years old. college student. female. music junkie. wannabe photographer. semi-pro letter writer.

No, I'm not the best writer in the world. I'm more of a math/science geek, but that doesn't stop me. I had a personal blog for over two years that was mildly popular. It was also the focus of all my college essays and it got me accepted to my dream school. I shut it down awhile ago. There have been various failed attempts to revive it. At the moment, Return to Sender is my only project.

Links

2009-07-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

About the blog & the writer
Follow me blindly on Twitter
Send me an e-mail

Return to Sender

WomenEverywhere

NOLA

Proctor & Gamble

Mother, Father

Comcast

Looking for TinaVegas Craigslist

CassieCraigslist

Anorexic Princesstwitter.com/bones4me85

Attention Whore(s)Everywhere

About

Links

Archive