Reply Hazy, Try Again

I’ve done as you instructed. I’ve kept this coupon. For thirty years or so, I think. It was in that metal tin I keep pennies in. If you’re young, ask your parents what pennies are. Unlike this coupon, they’re not valuable, though.

It’s valuable. I’m not sure if the value is extrinsic, or intrinsic. Well, that’s mostly because I don’t know what those words mean, and I’m too lazy to look them up. But trying to discover its value is a fool’s errand, anyway. I’m generally overqualified for any given fool’s errand. My resume is full of Quixotic skirmishing, Columbia House subscriptions gone fallow after one Creedence album, and various other unsuccessful attempts to bring back a witch’s broomstick for a big payoff. But I know it’s a waste of time to wonder about its value. It says right on it: IT IS VALUABLE. It’s in ALL CAPITALS. As you know from reading the internet, typing in ALL CAPS is the cruise control for awesome. You’re not just right, you’re RIGHT. We’ve got to play it as it lays. Honestly, the only way it could be manifestly more valuable is if they’d put a period after each word in the tag line. Can you imagine? IT. IS. VALUABLE. That would really have been something. But it wasn’t.

Still, I yearn for answers. I search for clues. Wait! there’s a number on it. 0477863. Hmm. It’s got the right number of digits.

It doesn’t roll off the tongue like 867-5309, does it? And I don’t think you can have an exchange numbered 047. There is an area code 047 in County Monaghan in Ireland, but we’re short a bunch of numbers at the end if we use it for an area code. I thought about contacting one of the bog trotting layabouts that live over there and asking if the number meant anything. Well, they’re layabouts if they’re my relatives. Then again, Carrickmacross is north of Dublin, and my people were never allowed up there. We were instructed to stay down south and cook our rotting potatoes over a burning mud fire, and like it, while it lasted. They casually mentioned the mail boat to Halifax N.S. was free. No reason.

Bah! Let’s try Google. Google would never lead you astray. Let’s not tart it up, either. Let’s put 0477863 straight in to the Palo Alto Pandora, and see what comes out of the box. Here it is. The 0477863:

Now, this is intriguing. It has more than a hint of B. Kliban’s Genitals of the Universe series.

Somehow, I’m not convinced I have a ticket good for one alien abduction, with a free probing thrown in. Upon reflection, I realize that since I’ve never lived in a trailer park, or read von Däniken, books, I’m an unlikely candidate for alien abduction. I’m not even sure if the alien probe is free, come to think of it, or if there’s a co-pay, like the one my doctor keeps offering me every checkup. In any case, I think I’d pass.

I’ve tried consulting my Magic Eight Ball, but it said Reply hazy, try again, over and over. I quizzed my Ouija board, but the answer XQZTRMPLAAOOE wasn’t that informative, and the second reply was L M N O P Q R S T, which is just a roadside sobriety test, which I would have failed because who Ouijas sober? I gave up.

So I’ve done as the ticket instructed. I’ve kept this coupon for thirty years or so. Just because it hasn’t panned out yet, there’s no reason to give up. That’s also what I tell my wife about our marriage. I guess I’ll have to hang on to it for another thirty years to see how it turns out.