My Mind (or Friend) Playing Tricks on Me

 

These are some of the intriguing items someone has sent me.

   It seems someone inside Erie County is having some fun with me, and so far, I have few clues as to who the comedian is.

     Sometime in late February/early March, I received an interdepartmental manila envelope addressed to “Mr. Kevin L. Hosey, Esq. Erie County Rath Building FOURTH FLOOR,” incorrect middle initial noted. Inside the envelope was a book, “The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks,” by Joshua Cooper Ramo. No accompanying note or anything else was included. About a month later, I received another manila interdepartmental envelope, addressed to “Kevin Hosey 4TH FLOOR,” with another book inside, “Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?” by Denny F. Strigl and Frank E. Swiatek. Again, no note of any kind, but this envelope was in another manila interdepartmental envelope.

     I tried to figure out any connections between the two packages, but there were few, except that both came from the 11th Floor of the Rath Building. One specifically had a previous delivery address of Unit 100, a specialized office of the Erie County Department of Social Services on that floor; I work in the accounting department (Office of Financial and Resource Management) of ECDSS. The other had as one of the crossed-off addresses the “11th Floor;” the main occupant of the 11th Floor is the Comptroller’s Office. I know no one who works at Unit 100, but I have a friend who I formerly worked with in another department/part of Erie County who works at the Comptroller’s Office, and is ridiculously intelligent with a frequently dry sense of humor, but has never pulled such a joke on me and have not even alluded to such a situation; they are also the type who would never use Erie County interdepartmental envelopes for anything but county business. BTW, I also hate self-help books.

     No other instances occurred and I thought this was a hit-and-run joke, but in mid-May, I received a third manila county interdepartmental envelope, this time addressed to “Sir Kevin Hosey Fourth Floor Rath Building,” but with all of the previous addresses inked out and unreadable. The contents were the most interesting yet: A typed note reading “See you real soon! Love you K-DOG!!!!!,” a small envelope containing a preprinted card reading “SURPRISE!” on the outside and handwritten “BOO!!!” on the inside, a postcard announcing the opening reception for “Tonto Revisited: Native American Stereotypes,” at the ArtRage Gallery in Syracuse from November 2010, and a copy of the CD “Rise Up: Colors of Peace,” readings of works of Turkish poet and Muslim political activist M. Fethullah Gulen, who the Turkish government tried to extradite from the US during the Trump presidential monstrosity.

     This last package has me flummoxed. I have no idea why any of the individual items were sent. have absolutely no idea how they relate, and I have NEVER been a nickname person, even though I went through grade school and high school being called “Hose” or “The Hose” way more than my given name. One person in college called me K-Hose a couple of times, but they neither work for nor live in Erie County.

     I applaud the person or people involved with leaving so few identifiable clues and in particular, such a weird assortment of items in the last package. It seems someone knows part of me very well and for a long time, or had a way of finding out those things. Wish I could turn to my late father Edward to utilize his sleuthing skills as developed in the U.S. Army Security Agency; he loved a good puzzle or conspiracy to break.