Narcissistically yours

Someone I care about gave me a gift of smelly soapy products:

 

 Very nice! But then I looked more closely at the name of the scent:

 

Narcissist! Is someone trying to send me a message? 

I'm at the point in the semester when I need messages to be clear and unambiguous. I'm so immersed in grading student prose that when I see a sentence I don't quite understand, I assume that the problem is mine instead of the student's. Maybe that guy really intended to assert that a certain poet "secedes in her mission"! Maybe that other student was trying to be clever in stating that the film adaptation "compliments" the original text! And I'm just exhausted enough that when a student says the reason I can't access the assignment is "user error," I wonder what error I'm making that disables the embedded link.

I tried to send a clear message to the post office this morning without going postal, but now they've got me questioning my ability to determine what's real and what's a nefarious plot to drain my bank account. I've written before about our difficulties in getting packages delivered properly, and for a while service has been okay, but this week it took a turn toward the surreal. 

Monday: a flat package containing 8x10 photo prints had "Photos--do not bend" printed on the package, so instead of folding the photos and cramming them into our mailbox or driving up to the house to leave them on the porch, the carrier set the package ON THE GROUND beneath our mailbox, between the road and the drainage ditch, IN THE POURING RAIN. By the time we picked up the mail, the cardboard was falling to pieces (but the photos were in plastic so they survived).

Tuesday: The mail carrier drove up to the house to deliver a package and we took the opportunity to show him what was left of Monday's packaging, and he explained that a substitute carrier had delivered on Monday and should have known better than to deliver a package on the ground in the rain. Won't happen again!

Wednesday: I was driving home late after a final exam, in the dark, in the snow, so exhausted that I wasn't even planning to stop at the mailbox until I saw a large package ON THE GROUND, IN THE SNOW, right next to the road where any fool could run over it, run off with it, or knock it into the drainage ditch. If I hadn't stopped, it would have sat there all night--unless it got stolen or, I don't know, mauled by coyotes.

So this morning I went miles out of my way so I could be at the post office when the doors opened. I was patient. I was calm. I was as pleasant as I could possibly be under the circumstances, but I let them know in no uncertain terms that it is not okay for my grandkids' Christmas gifts to be dumped in a heap by the side of the road.

The postal worker on duty was very apologetic. Substitute carrier, didn't know the area well, won't happen again, blah blah blah.I'll believe it when I see it, but maybe after all this you can understand why I was a little flustered this afternoon when I received a text message explaining that a package could not be delivered and had been returned to the post office and I would need to pay 23 cents to have it redelivered, and the only way I could do that was by inserting a credit-card number.

On the one hand, I am desperate to make sure my remaining packages get delivered properly, and 23 cents seems like a small price to pay; on the other hand, since when has the US Postal Service demanded my credit card number in a text message? And while the site I was directed to looked like an official USPS site, the url was full of odd words that looked like Chinese names.

Of course it's a scam. And of course I'm befuddled enough to be susceptible to such a scam, but a few brain cells that remain intact stopped me before I put in my credit card number and urged me to call the post office again. The message I received there was clear, direct, and unambiguous: Don't submit your credit-card number. It's a scam. Tell your friends and family! 

So that's what I'm doing. You're welcome! 

(A narcissist would have kept that info to herself.)