The package arrived in a plain padded envelope. My head was spinning with curiosity. I squeezed the edges of the undefined contents to discover the shape of a flat almost square box. Could this be the long awaited creedal program? Was this the disc that Sir Edmund's nephew had created from the masters secret manuscripts? Before my conscious brain could caution me of the dangers in opening any package before the lab had a chance to scan it, I tore into the crackly paper. Pop! Pop! Pop! I fell to the floor, an felt the pressure on my chest.
That damn dog had left his hard rubber toy in the middle of the floor. The wrapper lay before me on the terra cotta tiles. Taking a pencil from my pocket, I slowly, carefully spun it around so I could see the contents through it's torn corner. Bubble wrap. Ah, that explained the popping. Taking the eraser end of the pencil I exaggerated the opening so I could see the rest of the contents. "Chick Cornea". What an odd label. Had someone ruthlessly disassembled a ladies eyeball and sent me the core remnants? Could this have been the work of the "eye for an eye" cereal killer I had read about? Had he startled another unsuspecting coed during her breakfast, drowned her in her milk, spooned out her eyeballs, and mailed another mangled eye with the cryptic words... "don't contact me, I will contact you". Why me though? A simple Acuvue regional rep with a hankering for all things Carl Sagan? Why me?
Oh, it's Chick C - O - R - E - A. Silly me. I picked myself and the crumpled envelope off of the floor and, as I should have done in the first place, checked the return address. Jim Meskimen. That Applied Silliness impersonator person. Ah, now it all made sense. Somehow intuiting that I had been a saxophonist in a Jazz band in college he had thoughtfully sent me the perfect token of his appreciation for my cartoon caption. Chick Corea's "The Ultimate Adventure". I exhaled a long sigh of relief. And Smiled. "Thank you, Jim." I thought. Walking down the hall to slide the CD into the computer, I thanked God for still playing with His creation.
