Tuesday, April 11, 2006

A quick tale 123

Letter to a former tenant

You must be surprised to hear from me, Irene Spencer. It's not like we were friends or anything. I'm writing this note to thank you for subscribing to the Littlewoods (free) catalogue. They do have the most gorgeous collection of summer dresses. In the latest issue which came addressed to you, there's one in particular - in a lovely shade of pastel green with tiny blue flower prints - that I'm thinking of ordering. Oh, I do hope that you don't mind that I opened some of your correspondence.

In the first few months after moving here, I set your letters aside. But as time went by, it became clear that you were not coming back to collect your mail. Initially I thought of destroying them but there might have been something important that required attention. And indeed there was. There was a note (written in a menacing tone) from a debt collector. Apparently, you had ordered some books and never paid for them. It was followed by a court summons some time later. I don't think you will be interested in the details. Suffice to say that they gave up after a few more unsavoury threats.

But not all of your mail was bad. Your cousin 'Wally' (Wallace?) had sent you a postcard from Spain. It had a vulgar drawing on it. I didn't want to leave it lying around the house (I have small children, you see), so I tore it up. You aunt Mabel has been sending you Christmas cards every year and inviting you to join her for lunch on Boxing day. You must write to her and tell her that you have moved. There has also been an assortment of pamphlets and brochures offering everything from a clean garden to a set of sparkling white teeth to fixing you up with a nice date on Valentine's day.

Which reminds me, have you renewed your passport? Because there was an intimation from the Home Office of its impending expiration. By the way, I have told the credit card people that you are no longer interested in another card (I may have just added that you are migrating to Australia to get them off my back). There's still a couple of mailers from a charity for the homeless asking you for a donation. You are welcome to pick them up anytime you wish. You know where I live.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmm... have i told you that I keep getting letters for flat # 10-C, tower B & Flat # 10-C, tower D at my place 10-C, tower C? Both these B&D tower 'brihaspadees' have given just 10-C, *name of our building* as their mailing address (no mention of Tower),to ICICI, Citibank and the likes.

I used to religiously send these letters from these banks to their apartments with a note from me requesting them to correct their address.[Dear Sir/Ma'am, Kindly /please correct your address..Thank you .. blah blah]

Umpteen requests and even 'nice' notes (you know how 'nice' i can be) went unnoticed.

These days i get these mails, one 'darr' .. another 'darrr' .. it goes directly into my dustbin.

'Tirundaada janmangal' !

Archana said...

Ah - I can so totally relate to this story. Its been 6 months since I moved to my new place - I still get the mails of the previous occupant. This in spite of me religiously gathering all those mails and returning them to the post-office. Grrr!

Anonymous said...

Very relatable.

We get mails of the prev. houseowner though she moved out 1.5 years back.

It's tax-season...here..and I hope I can get to use some of her papers to claim refunds.

Anonymous said...

A nice post ..-Archana Bahuguna

Suguna said...

Nice one. Can relate to it very well.

Srihari said...

Nice...

BrainWaves said...

It is interesting that we worry about the former tenant's letters that annoy us. And safely forget that we are "former tenant" to someone else. Well I guess it evens out at the end! :)

Ammani, Amazing thought process you have!

Anonymous said...

dearest ex

thank you soooooo much feel free to go through my correspondance
love those shorts in that tacky catalogue and flip flops too
yeah yeah couldnt hear those summons from here and please dahling pay those bills for me.


kisses

D LordLabak said...

Mails are a little less irritating than phones. We used to get AIR calls. "Hello Madame, neengal kettavaya?". Once I said "yes" and continued the conversation to have some fun.

nourish-n-cherish said...

Lovely one....I am thinking up of intimidating techniques to deal with those who do a slipshod job of noting down the change of address when you do intimate them ;)

My license renewal came to the right place (that's for collecting money right:), and the license itself was sent to the wrong address!

BTW, Ammani - I've been reading your blog recently, and to state the obvious: you are really talented! Keep it up!

The ramblings of a shoe fiend said...

Loved the last line. Wonderful as always.

shub said...

hehehe :))

Anonymous said...

Y'know, this could be quite a menacing story, if the protagonist wasnt a new and legal tenant, as such. I actually thought it was meant to be scary! Was it?

Kaps said...

what deepa says is true. airtel allotted me a politician's phone number and I got all sorts of calls. At that point in time, incoming calls were not free and I had to fight it out with airtel to waive the charge for the local calls. some people wanted me to recommend their son / daughter for a seat in an engineering college :-)

Wild Reeds said...

Ha ha ha!
Funny.