I'm sitting at home in a white
undershirt and underpants when the doorbell rings. I realize it's
the delivery man with the new cellphone. My wife is hobbling to the
door. But I know that the package will require a signature, so I get
up to sign for it. But then I realize I need to put on pants. Where
did I leave them? I go from room to room quickly, almost
frantically, searching for my clothes. Finally I find them, in a
neat pile in front of the telephone in the kitchen. Meanwhile, my
wife has let the man into the house and calls out to say that it's
the man from Lands End. Still in my underwear, I encounter the man
in a doorway. He's taller than me and dressed in a uniform – white
shirt and blue pants – like a delivery man / courier.
The scene has shifted. I'm in an
office, lit brightly with natural light from undressed windows. I'm
certainly not on the ground floor; I'm perhaps at least three stories
up. Suspicious, I question the man. I haven't ordered from Lands End
in a long time. Maybe this is a scam to hijack my Lands End account.
Maybe his showing up will compel me to log in to my Lands End
account while an accomplice with a packet sniffer picks out my
username and password. So I say, “When was the last time I ordered
from Lands End?” “Oh, in 1951,” he lies. This bothers me.
First, I was born in the sixties. Second, does he really think I
look that old?* So I say,
“I'm calling the police.” He nods as if to say, “Oh well, you
caught me.” It was just a threat – I was hoping he would run
away. But he stays. My daughter is here, so I say to her, “Let me
have your cellphone,” hoping to convince him I am serious. She gives it to me. It occurs to me to use
the cellphone to take a picture of the man. I get distracted trying
to find the camera app. By the time I find it, the man has moved.
I don't remember what he looked like, and there are two other men
dressed just like him! Which one is he? Then I see that he is
walking out the door.
The
scene has shifted again. It is night time. I'm outside in a parking
lot that looks as though it was hewn out of thick woods. The margins
are irregular and there is no curb along the perimeter. The three
men are now driving three separate white Cadillacs. They're leaving
the parking lot. The first two are driving to the right, headed for
the road. The third is driving straight away from me onto a dirt
path. I get into my car. My daughter is in the driver's seat, so I
get in on the passenger side and say, “Follow that car,” pointing
to the third one. We both know she's an inexperienced driver – she
just got her license. But I'm not really serious about “catching”
this man, and I figure it would be a nice confidence booster for my
daughter if demonstrate that I'm willing to depend on her for this
kind of thing. I take out the cellphone and hold it up to aim at the
car. I operate the laser pointer focusing beam. I see the red dot
appear on the rear window of the car. The car stops and its lights
go out.
* It doesn't occur to me that there was no Internet back in 1951. Maybe there wasn't even a Lands End, either.
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