The Package With No Return Address

The package has been sitting by my door since morning, and I have been sitting on my couch since evening, watching it the way you watch a spider in the corner of the ceiling. No return address. My name spelled correctly, which somehow makes it worse. I finally open it with scissors and the flat, resigned energy of a man who already knows his Tuesday is ruined.

Inside, folded in tissue paper, is a speedo thong. Rainbow-striped. Shiny. The kind of garment that has never once touched my body. Beneath it sits a laminated card, professionally printed, with step-by-step pool cleaning instructions: skim the surface, check the pH, vacuum the deep end, report completion to the number below. Below that, a phone number. Below that, in smaller print, like a joke told with a straight face: 'Thank you for renewing your contract.'

I live in a third-floor walk-up. I do not have a pool. My building does not have a pool. I am fairly sure my city does not have enough water for a pool this insistent. I am holding a laminated card and a rainbow thong, and somewhere out there, someone believes I have accepted a job. The card's instructions are very clear about what happens if I don't report by Friday.