Hey Jack, Gimme A Cool Number
"Yeah, 295 sounds good!"
Random off-the-dome post here, Dateline: August 2023. Realizing we are already deep into August, my ruminations about the passing of time are unrelenting!
I don’t know if this story is funny, but I needed to get it out.
When we moved, during some pandemic times, maybe we were all still working, I decided to man (person) up and get a business mailbox at UPS.
We live in Brighton, part of Boston, but I wanted the place to have a Boston- address. A real “BOSTON” type of address that makes you crave a glazed donut from Dunks.
The UPS Store at 1095 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA, was to be the place. 02215. The actual United States Postal Service boxes are costly. Even this one costs me nearly $700 a year!
Are you feeling these numbers? Not the money. The numbers of the street address.
“Fives”
Nice round “Nines”
A couple 'o “Twos” with their boastful puffed-out chests
Firmly, a true Bostonian’s address on Commonwealth Ave.
Blocks away from Aerosmith’s house.
A short jaunt to WGBH’s infamous ZOOM address.
The store is at Packards Corner, which sounds very close to the New England classic turn of phrase ‘Package Store’ aka ‘Liquor Store’. Very Boston.
Did they film some parts of Good Will Hunting at this UPS store? I picture an unhinged ‘fan’ of our Vampire Council podcast sending us handmade creepy paper art to the address. I dunno, man, it was the pandemic, and we were all going to be famous online with the perfect Zoom backdrop.
I have had bands ship me an entire tour’s worth of merchandise to this P.O. Box.
(Please, I beg you, don’t do that again.)
While closing this $700 deal, I was confronted with an actual choice. I had a few mailbox numbers, but none complimented the rest of the cool-sounding street address.
103? nah
252?
176?
434?
Any even number didn’t have the right mouthfeel. I needed weight. Meaning, a number that could handle all of the debt consolidation offers, festival badges, replacement window ads, and Amazon bubble mailers stuffed in the ass end of the mailbox with ends hanging out like tobacco from a hand-rolled Drum cigarette.
I told the manager I wanted my mailbox to ‘sound cool’.
My inner dialogue raced… “Did the last person give him this song and dance? Did the last person take the next assigned mailbox number with no preference? What kind of monsters are we dealing with here? Who’s at 532? Someone who doesn’t need their mailbox number to sound cool, that’s who!”
“Who’s Number One?”
The manager dutifully tapped the side of his computer with a blue Bic, looking at the options through his cool-looking black Kn-95 (these were the style at the time!)
“Two…Ninety… Five?”
Yes! That’s it. A pee-shiver tickled my whole body. An ASMR-gasm at UPS.
295
You may send mail correspondence (and checks) to:
Clay Fernald C/O LeaguePodcast
1089 Commonwealth Ave.
P.O. Box 295
Boston, MA 02215
A jingle to easily remember that address is still forthcoming.
P.S. The only correspondence that makes it into the mailbox are actual paychecks or letter-sized mail, but most of those things go to my house anyway. There are thermal printer sticker labels corresponding to another shelf just out of my sight-line behind the wall of key mailboxes, representing my Amazon packages. I never want to see this particular Narnia of BU student Amazon deliveries back there.
I wish to leave that part of life a mystery, as the helpers at UPS always return, sometimes clumsily balancing my boxes emblazoned with a cool looking “295” in matching thermal printer font. Gotta be Arial, am I right?
Here, my mailbox key is bronze to match the box. At home, silver to match that box. Almost every time, I try the wrong key first.
In case you missed it,
and I spare you pain to celebrate 15 years of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight in the Four-Part “League Podcast Presents: The Alfred Letters”. Now…