suspicious package

After a delightful and shambley weekend in New York City, where I caught up with Mr. Socrates Johnson of India Poop Blog fame, my old roomie and sizable credit card debt (the shopping is just too good...), I came home to find a suspicious package in my mailbox.

Was it anthrax? No. It was worse -- way worse.

It came in a plain manila envelope, folded in half and stapled to make smaller to ensure its terroristical (yeah, I definitely just made that up) contents sat snug through its travels about the United States Postal Service. Whoever sent it even went so far as to impersonate my mother, using her mailing labels and perfecting her handwriting. The final touch? The stamp was labeled as having come from the town in which she works. This terrorist was good. Damn good.

And so I naively opened it, not knowing what to expect, as my mother hadn't informed me she was sending anything. That's when I stumbled upon this worst case scenario. This terrorist posing as my mom had sent me a...a...

A MINI CROC!


"WHY ME?!" I thought as I recoiled in horror. And then I noticed the malicious note attached. Scrawled out in ballpoint pen in all caps except for the last word, which was underlined, it read: "FOR YOUR FASHION Fierceness!"

Oh, cruelty, thy name is tiny Croc! What kind of monster would do this to me? While all the evidence points to my mommy dearest, I know she doesn't hate me that much. I mean, she would never waste $1.68 to terrorize me with this mini-Croc keychain. Or would she?! This is the same woman, after all, who once dragged a 12-year-old me to an event in a suburban Minnesota mall to see Richard Simmons sweat to the oldies. Did I mention I had the beginnings of strep throat and had also just come from the eye doctor's and was looking a bit like this? If there's a hell for 12-year-olds, that was it. And here I thought blood was thicker than short-shorts and Crocs...silly me.

Now the question is, did she act alone or did she have an accomplice? This incident has this guy written all over it. Where the hell is TIPS when you need it?!