Underpants On The Outside

 One of the things I hate about living in New York is receiving packages.  It’s not a big problem, unless you have a doorman, or, y’know… work for living.  In that case, when you receive a delivery notice, you have three choices:

• a. Sign it, leaving your neighbors a comfortable window of time to steal your big screen TV, iPod or digital camera.
• b. Take off work the next day, only for the delivery guy to show up at a decent after-work hour for the first time in human history.
• c. Helplessly receive two more notices until the package is stored at the nearest facility, which is located in the one part of Brooklyn that was also part of the Confederacy. But while it is far, at least it’s in a really bad neighborhood. Oh yeah: there’re no subways that go there and you don’t own a car.

As an alternative, a lot of people have packages delivered to their office, as I do. But then everyone wants to know: what’s in the box, and in this day and age, when almost everything is cheaper when ordered online, this can lead to some awkward situations.  For instance, what if you were an aspiring writer who had found a niche market writing material about, I don’t know, comic books, let’s say.  And let’s say you were working on a project that-

Oh fuck it.  My She-Hulk action figure arrived today, okay?  Yes - I ordered a doll.  In fact, I ordered three: two She-Hulks sand a Superman, which will be arriving next week.  THEY ARE FOR A PROJECT.  (I swear!) And if this project works out the way I hope it does, I should have some very good news in a month or so.

But no one cares about that, do they?  No.  They just want to make their little jokes.  (As you can imagine, they’re mostly of the “Show me on the She-Hulk where the bad man touched you” and “Jesus, what kind of sick shit goes on in that balding head of yours?” variety.)

On a different subject, in a few weeks I’m going to have two She-Hulk action figures and one Superman, all in good condition, which I will be looking to get rid of.  Anyone interested?  (Note: they may be a bit sticky.)