Based on your Blockbuster rentals of November-December 2010 it’s apparent you enjoyed George Clooney flicks (9) and nearly as plain you had some kind of a thing for George Clooney, but there’s been a spike since the new year in Fassbinder films, notably the 1969 classic, Love is Colder Than Death, and (6) others in ten days. We don’t know how to account for the change. Clooney, we decided, resembles your boyfriend, former boyfriend(?), chin, eyes, and your father, lips, nose, photos on Bing, and we noted an 83% decrease in # of emails from you to your parents shortly after Xmas. Your bank activity did not change over the last quarter excepting the predictable rise preceding the holidays, but with the turn of 2011, or shortly before, we counted eight transactions at site # CAD 0519, 174.6 miles from your nearest and most frequently visited automatic teller machine. Our records show nine withdrawals from non-BofA ATMs incurring fees of $13.50 since the new decade began. Coincident with the flurry of withdrawals—$763.50 including fees—we noted a marked decrease in Costco purchases, particularly Low-Sodium Triscuits and Low-fat Lucerne brand vanilla yogurt in the 12-pack 8-ounce containers and a marked increase in Martini and Rossi Sweet Vermouth from zero to two 1.5-liter bottles, and over the same period, December 30 – January 11, another new preference, Haagen Dazs ice cream bars, coffee almond crunch, three six-packs in 12 days. Do you still buy toilet tissue? Have you stopped feeding your cats? Library fees exceed $50 and your last attempt to borrow, Everyman’s Guide to Unsafe Mycelium, was denied. Lucky for you, we say, but you bought a Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action short-barrel shotgun for $279.99 and we see you were billed full cost for a visit to Dr. Simon Lipschitz in mid December and we’re quite sure you didn’t go, given at the time of your appointment you purchased $36.19 worth of regular unleaded and a bag of spicy corn nuts 65 miles south of his office.
We are not contacting you now, in this case, to offer liposuction, Demerol, Cymbalta, or a weekend in the Bahamas, though on all of the above we can guarantee a 20-30% savings until the end of January and fantastic low rates of up to 50% on Wolfschmidt Vodka and the highest quality HP and FMJ ammo. We write because we see you running headlong toward your own undoing, i.e. disaster, what is sometimes called immeasurable sorrow.
This is not a cave. This, what you’re in, dark as it seems, is only a tunnel. Your desires chart a course, and we know, with a 3% margin of error, where you’re going. You might or might not ever love again, Beth. There’s a limit to what our instruments can do. We think perhaps regret is a bottomless vessel, but of this we are sure: there is no end of wanting.
