My mailman thinks I'm a Communist...

I take mail very personally. Someone takes the time to write me a letter or at least direct an intern to lick a stamp, I think I should give it some consideration. I'm a perfect target for the direct mail industry, I know. But I like getting mail. I feel the mail I receive is indicative of who I am.

I work in not-for-profit theatre, so I get many emails and unsolicited brochures of cultural offerings. It says that I am a culturally aware individual, at least to the mailman.

Having given to many a liberal organization the last few years from the DNC to Move On, I get donation materials from all sorts of left-wing organizations like PETA, and every single liberal running for anything in the country. This tells the mailman that I have a core set of political beliefs that I support, that I probably voted against Bush (twice!), and that I have more money than I actually do.

In 2003, I graduated from NYU. Anyone without a trust fund who graduated from NYU knows the amount debt one racks up there. To prove it, at least once a week I get a letter whose envelope tells me how urgent it is to open this telegram-looking mailer immediately. I fall for it every time, and rip open the letter only to discover it's yet another collection agency promising to save me another interest percentage point on my outstanding loans. Hopefully these types of letters explain to the mailman that I can't have too much money.

I understand where these mails come from, and why I am getting them. I imagine there is a vast interconnected universe of mail rooms out there that share a database. And next to my entry it says: "liberal, generous, debt, etc." Or maybe it just says: "sucker."

Then there are those mails that I assume everyone gets, but that doesn't stop me from taking them very personally. For instance, why are The Internets so convinced that not only do I have a mortgage, but one that is in such desperate need for refinancing? Who have my email providers been talking to, and why do they assume my penis needs enlarging? Why do I get crazy catalogs filled with all sorts of crap, such as angel statuary and novelty t-shirts with messages like "you should see me without my coffee?" (Okay, maybe that last one is mine own fault for ordering that ceramic cow complete with dress-up clothes for my ex-patriated friend.)

Well last week my take-it-to-heart attitude really struck me hard when I received a pamphlet in the mail to join the Communist Party. That's right. THE Communist Party! I've been accused of being super left-wing before, when I am in reality a very loyal Democratic Party-man. Has my disgust with all things Bush gone and labeled me a Communist? Are my left-of-center views so radical that I have to join the Commies for proper representation? And why doesn't that chairmen's picture inside the front cover look even remotely Russian and evil?

It's unnerving to have your beliefs suddenly attributed to such a politically loaded label like that. But I've always said that communism works great on paper. And this pamphlet is very convincing.

But for now I'll stick with mainstream Democrat underdogs and leave my voter registration card alone.