Coffee Table Declarations
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Want to hear something scary? O.K., it's not spider-in-the-bedroom scary, but it's mildly disturbing anyway. When I got home yesterday there was a piece of mail for me on the table. It was hand-addressed to my last apartment with a post office sticker on it indicating my new address. The return address was simply a first initial, last name, and the city and state.
I opened the envelope to find one of my old pay stubs! Although I usually hang onto them, I must have thrown one away during my move and the trash bag broke or desperate people dug through it for recyclables (it happened all the time in that neighborhood) and the next thing you know, papers were probably blowing down the street all willy nilly.
This is upsetting because that pay stub (although not a "live" check) has all kinds of information on it: my salary, my place of employment, my social security number... and if that got out into the world somehow, what else is blowing around in the back alleys of my old neighborhood? Grocery lists? Receipts? Journal entries? Yikes. What an icky feeling to think of my personal life being spewed onto the streets like so much trash.
The benevolent sender did not include a note, but I am grateful that they took the time to return my pay stub. I joked to my mom that first they probably copied down all of my information. Then I got serious and asked her, "Mom, is someone going to steal my identity?" And with the sad state of my financial situation in mind, my mother replied "well good luck to them if they do!"
I opened the envelope to find one of my old pay stubs! Although I usually hang onto them, I must have thrown one away during my move and the trash bag broke or desperate people dug through it for recyclables (it happened all the time in that neighborhood) and the next thing you know, papers were probably blowing down the street all willy nilly.
This is upsetting because that pay stub (although not a "live" check) has all kinds of information on it: my salary, my place of employment, my social security number... and if that got out into the world somehow, what else is blowing around in the back alleys of my old neighborhood? Grocery lists? Receipts? Journal entries? Yikes. What an icky feeling to think of my personal life being spewed onto the streets like so much trash.
The benevolent sender did not include a note, but I am grateful that they took the time to return my pay stub. I joked to my mom that first they probably copied down all of my information. Then I got serious and asked her, "Mom, is someone going to steal my identity?" And with the sad state of my financial situation in mind, my mother replied "well good luck to them if they do!"
