MR. POSTMAN, DON'T STOP HERE

The following originally appeared in the Nov. 14 edition of the New Castle Courier-Times.

We no more than got used to the empty nest when Era Next arrives.

And I thought the empty nest was bad.

Wasn’t it just a couple years ago when the boys were getting college brochures in the mail and we were scratching our heads, trying to find those odd, extra-long twin-bed sheets unique to Ball State University dorms?

These days the mailman is delivering new offers the senders hope we can't refuse.

There are batches of brochures, bulging envelopes, and invites for “free” fancy dinners. If you saw our mailbox, you’d think that Brian, anyway, is a pretty popular guy, maybe even some sort of celebrity. But the truth is, being 64 is what makes him attention-worthy.

His special mail arrives almost daily from all kinds of insurance companies, ones we’d never even heard of before, wanting to talk to him about the supplementary Medicare insurance he’ll need on his next birthday.

If he opened and read all the information they send, well, he’d need to hire a personal assistant to help keep it all straight and, since he's retired and can't afford such a thing, and  I’m not applying, the bulk of it goes unopened.

It all makes our heads spin, frankly, so when the time comes, we’ll probably go with a  recommendation from a retiree we trust --  and leave it at that.

On a more occasional basis, we get fancy invites to dinners. Would be nice if they were from friends or family but no, these are dinners from people we don’t know wanting to sell us something. They’re at places we would never attend courtesy of our own wallets and the pictures
show cloth napkins, china, silver  – the whole works.

They look romantic. And delicious. Yes, the invites are clearly supposed to be irresistible until, of course, you consider that at such a meal, the reality is you’d be sitting wall-to-wall next to other
couples who received the same invites and like us, are just there for the eats. I envision a salesman standing over us pitching whatever investment he or she is selling. Maybe I’m wrong. But I think I’m probably closer to right. One thing is for sure, and that's that we aren't biting.

It is said there are no free lunches. I imagine that goes double for free dinners.

But the mail we got the other day topped both these. It was a funeral home inviting us to come on in and get our preplanning on. This has happened before. The last time, the funeral service had the gall to ask us what we expected to spend on a funeral. You know, so they could better come up with a package. Excuse me?

But we didn't bite on that offer either, and the place is trying again. We'll just pass and try not to pass on.

So this is the stage we're in. I’m not sure what mail will come in the one after this one.  I don’t think
I want to know. Maybe we’ll just change our mailing address.

Donna Cronk is Neighbors Editor of The Courier-Times and edits the
quarterly her magazine for women.