Does UPS Have Dog Sniffers?

So a few days ago UPS delivers a box. Plain, sort of shabby brown box, to Lunasea and Husband LastNameBadlyMangled. It's from Sid and Nancy Vision. I figure G. ordered something off the internet and forget about it until today when I say, "Hey. G. Did you order something off the internet?"

G: "No."

Me: "Hmmm. Well, a box came, and they can't spell our name. From Sid and Nancy Vision? In Iowa?"

G: "Oooh, that's really weird."

Me: "Yeah. Maybe a punk store in Iowa? I don't know. Let's open it and see."

G: "We'd better open it outside. This is really weird. We don't know what it could be. This is really weird."

We open it up and find two typewritten notes inside:


Hmm. I don't know a Nancy. On the second note, my name is spelled correctly, though. That's odd.

So we dig a little further and dig out this, um, fairy with a lantern:

(the photo does not do it justice. It's about 14 inches tall and the glass in the lantern is broken).

We figured then that it couldn't be anyone who knew us because who on earth would be reminded of us as soon as they saw that? Please tell me none of you would be reminded of us when you saw that.

So I figure, whatever, Nancy knew someone named Collen who was heavily into fairies and maybe had lost touch with her, but knew she was married to someone named Greg, hopped on Zaba, found my address and said, "Hey. Close enough," and sent it on out. I did think the name "Sid and Nancy Vision" was a bit too close, of course, to "Sid and Nancy Vicious," but hey, it was obviously from a couple named Sid and Nancy who played on their name and own a small punk-rock, Spencer's-type shop in the local mall called "Sid and Nancy Visions". See? I had it all figured out.

G. was not so trusting. I snapped that picture quickly before he stuffed it back into the styrofoam and got it the hell out of breathing range, saying, "This is really weird. We don't know what it could have in it. Maybe anthrax. Let's get it back in the box." (Have I talked much about G's paranoia? He wanted us to wear masks on the first plane trip we took with A. because he was scared of SARS. I don't want to make fun of him, though, because our emergency kits are better stocked than the National Guard's, so when CA has that big earthquake, I want to be in his good graces. Anyway....)

Inside, he reminds me that he recently turned down a client because of a potential threat of violence from a family member and said, "This is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about!"

"Really? That they would pick out ugly garden ornaments and send them to your home?"

"Well, yeah!"

So there was a phone number on the label, and I copied it down, figuring I'd get some lady named Nancy and would have to tell her that the lovely, lovely gift she'd intended for someone else had arrived at our home and ask her how she'd like us to arrange to have it sent back, as soon as possible, preferably.

I called it, and it went to voice mail. "Hello. This is Prankster BIL, important guy at Wireless Company, yada yada yada." Aaaaaaugh! The worst thing is that we can't send it back now. So we're going to send it to my dad's wife (who is singularly responsible for ruining our latest trip to AZ) and say, "Just thinking of you, Love, BIL." Ha ha ha ha.

Our other plan is to tell him we took it to Antique Roadshow and that it's actually worth a million bucks.