Whatever happened to the Plain Brown Wrapper?

I arrived home from work last night, much like any other day. I had dinner plans with the GF later, so I ran downstairs to grab the mail – in a rush to change out of the work clothes that would in no way meet with her approval*. Than I proceeded to sort through the envelopes: fundraising letter from Public Radio, mortgage statement, postcard from breakfast delivery restaurant, offer for free porn, credit card solicita…

Wait a minute…[shuffles back an envelope or two]…that can’t be right…

Oh, but it was. Yes, I had somehow been sent a postcard offering me three free DVDs from Adam & Eve’s video division:



Yes, for only $9.95 to cover shipping and handling, I could indulge in such forbidden fruit as “Fire and Ice”, “Devoured**”, and “Guilty as Sin***”. It is a tempting offer, but somehow frustrating as well. I remember the never-ending quest to see nude women when I was a teenager. Stumbling across a dirt-caked copy of Playboy in the county fairgrounds one year was a seminal experience of my young adulthood. Everything about it seemed dangerous and illicit. I would have emptied my savings account for an offer like this back then. But now society will send letters to my house asking me if I want it for free? What's next? Will whorehouses in Nevada start mailing me brochures and offers for free airline tickets? Little sample bottles from my friendly neighborhood crack dealer showing up in my mailbox?

Of course, when I told the GF about my unexpected mailing, her question was the real uncomfortable one: “How did you get on their mailing list?”. Truth be told, I have no idea. So I can only expect that every male between the ages of 21 and 49 is receiving the same postcard I did in their mailbox this week. Or at least I hope so. If not then somehow the porn mafia has identified me as their next patsy. And that can’t be good.

* I have a few straggling “outfits” from me pre-GF days that I still use if for no other reason than a delusional feeling of loyalty to shirts that have served me well over the years

** What could this possibly be about? A porno about cannibalism? Maybe vampire porn. Or a tale of the forbidden love between a woman and her Twinkie...

*** I'm guessing this one is a high-stakes courtroom drama...

Comments

Stacey Pelika said…
I'm guessing that it's due to one of your magazine subscriptions - the mag that the GF really enjoys (i.e. Grrr doesn't subscribe to porn! At least not to my knowledge...), but which has a tendency to lure in young male readers with cover photos of scantily clad female celebrities. Although actually that subscription would seem to get you on the "Girls Gone Wild!" mailing list rather than an actual porn one. You could test this by changing the name on your subscription to something identifiable and potentially attractive to the porn mailing-list creators (J. Your Middle Name Your Last Name with 'ie' added?) and see what happens.
grrrbear said…
Oh yeah, you might have somethign there Spice. It's not like the laddie mags are porn, but they probably *do* share a similar demographic. Still, it seems like a pretty big jump from the laddies to "Guilty as Sin". (Adam & Eve Marketing exec: "Well, he likes hollywood celebrities in bikinis, therefore he *must* be into threesomes involving district attorneys, right?")

And I think if I used the name you suggested, I might end up getting a lot *more* porn. But then, that may have been your point... =)
towwas said…
I was going to comment on this earlier but Spice's "J. Your Middle Name Your Last Name with 'ie' added" was so funny, once I figured it out, I just didn't think I could contribute anything. So why am I posting now? Um. Good question. To point out that Spice is funny, and to say that if you hadn't already picked "Grrrbear," "Your Middle Name Your Last Name with 'ie' added" would have been an excellent blogonym.
ThatIsMeWhat said…
Yeah ever since Bubba got the Maxim subscription, we have been receiving mailings of ill-repute.
Nobody said…
Send one to me. Porn is the best. Besides, I could perhaps write a NW Girl review...~chuckle~
Annie said…
I was getting offers for 6 free months of Playboy magazine for a while. Now how the hell did I get on THAT mailing list!?!?
Jay Noel said…
I didn't know there was a porno mafia.
J.Po said…
Sophist, you know you like the ladies. It's time you admit it.

And Spice - that WAS hella funny!
grrrbear said…
You know, I've gotten the offers for Playboy before too, come to think of it. But it never really shocked me as much as this.

Maybe it's because I don't think of Playboy as porn anymore. Sure, they're nude, but there's no real "action". Just nekkid ladies lying around on the divan, wondering how best to artfully arrange all those lengths of lace and strings of pearls...