Identity Crisis!

About a month ago, on a Friday night, I got a call from my credit card company telling me that my identity had been stolen. Well, they didn't say that exactly, but they asked me to verify some charges that had been made, and I verified that I had, in fact, not made them, which meant that someone else had done so, which meant that my identity had been stolen. No big whoop. I went to the bank the next day and we went over the list of charges (the card that was used was a check card), and they sent the list of fraudulent charges to the boys in Fraud, and I wasn't out a dime. It was actually pretty great how easy it was to fix everything. While I was there I probably could have told them that a bunch of stuff that I'd bought online in the previous week was fake, too, and they wouldn't have had any idea. Except then I would've been essentially stealing my own identity, and committing my own fraud, and the boys in Fraud don't take too kindly to people what commit fraud.

A week or so later, packages started arriving. I didn't think anything of this, since I'm a fairly frequent eBay shopper, so I usually have a package or two a week of stuff that I've bought of the old internet. But the packages that were arriving were frequent, and they were things that I hadn't ordered. The first thing I received was a DVD detailing how to become a grant writer and make millions of dollars. I didn't watch it, but I probably should have, seeing as I'm barely making thousands of dollars now, and a million is a lot more than a thousand (I write math problems for a living!). The next thing that came was some make-up. Confession time: being a straight man, I don't wear make-up. I know, it's a shocker. I have worn make-up in the past, but only for the sake of theatre (I'm a straight man, I swear), and never for the fun of it. Okay, there was that costume party that I went to where I wore gold make-up all over my face, but that's it. The make-up that I'd received was age-defying cosmetic make-up, meant to make me look years younger than I am. It was basically Botox in a jar, and if I'd used it I was guaranteed to look like a 15-year-old again, which doesn't sound at all pleasant considering how pimply I was back then.

To make a long story short, the thieves who stole my identity, in their infinite wisdom, ordered a bunch of stuff online using my credit card and then had all of the stuff shipped to me. For what purpose, I have no idea. Minor inconvenience, perhaps? It would've been, if I'd had to return any of the stuff that I'd received, but after speaking to the people at the bank I learned that I was under no obligation to do so. So not only did I get all of my money back, but I also received the aforementioned DVD and make-up, plus a box of crappy books from Doubleday (which I not only did not have to pay for but ended up selling at Half-Price Books for a small profit) and a pair of earrings (which I gave to my mom, since Jennie doesn't wear jewelry and my mom really liked them). But my favorite thing that I received was a box from FTD: flowers. What had my identity thief sent me? Had he or she done so out of appreciation for my letting them use my credit card for a day? I opened the box with a great deal of anticipation, and I found a bouquet of lilies and pink roses. They were nice flowers, for sure, so I decided to display them. Unfortunately, not having any sort of a vase in my apartment, I had to make due with a water jug.



My favorite part about the flowers, aside from the fact that someone had sent me flowers and that has never happened before (and will probably never happen again), was that they came with a card. What would these dastardly criminals write? Would they reveal anything about their identity, or taunt me with the fact that they would probably never be caught? No. It was something far more touching than that.



Of course you do, you wasted a full day spending my money on useless crap that you didn't even have the brains to have sent to yourself.