I’ve always been a reasonable guy. I don’t believe in supernatural forces or little green aliens. But some things just can’t be explained. The deepest mystery of the world might be the fact I keep getting random Melissa Etheridge CDs mailed to my home once a month like clockwork.
I’m no stranger to getting CDs in the mail, I signed up for Columbia House with my mom’s credit card when I was just 13 years old and got all the Jerky Boys albums for 10 cents. It fucking ruled. I was a god in middle school. I even got my first handjob to “Sparky the Clown.” After a couple years, I owned every crude comedy CD known to man, along with a bunch of other cool shit like the Spawn soundtrack and Jock Jams Vol. 2. But then I got an iPod.
As I got older I grew wiser and realized that Columbia House deal wasn’t as sweet as it seemed. I looked into canceling my subscription but the Columbia House legalese was ironclad. Ultimately, it just made more sense to let them charge my mom every month to send me a Melissa Etheridge CD. It has remained the only constant in my adult life, outlasting marriages, pets, and even my poor mother in the end.
This is all despite the fact that Columbia House discontinued its mail-order business in 2009.
I have 238 Melissa Etheridge CDs. I’ve dedicated an entire closet to them. No one is allowed inside my Melissa Etheridge closet except for me. All of the CDs are unique. Different artwork, different songs, all Melissa Etheridge. For years, I considered her to be the most prolific musician of our parlance. It was not until recently that I realized none of these CDs technically exist according to Discogs.
Every road leads to nowhere. Melissa has not replied to any of my cries for help on social media and I’ve since been banned by every Melissa Etheridge Facebook fan page I could find. I’ve written a letter to the Postmaster General each day for the past year to get answers, and still nothing. I thought maybe the Qanon people could help, perhaps Columbia House and the deep state are in cahoots? But they all called me crazy.
Resigned, I sit back in my recliner and put on “Barstow Boogie, Vol. 1,” awaiting for the cruel grip of Winter to present me with Vol. 2.