Lost in the mail

When it comes to pop culture, I find that I'm either on the cutting edge, or I'm stubbornly and deliberately behind the times. I either latch onto something early in the game, so that I'm bored with it by the time everyone else climbs on the bandwagon (ie Desperate Housewives), or I simply refuse to get into things that everybody tells me I'll like (24). I think I just don't like liking things that everybody else likes. It's this sort of stubbornness that draws me to cult entertainment phenomena (but ironically makes me less likely to be drawn into actual cults, go figure), rather than mainstream hits*.

occasionally though, I relent. It's rare, but I'm only human. Most recently, I decided to give Lost a shot. It's been on for two seasons now, so I felt that it was perfect timing for me to show up to the party fashionably late. Honestly, the main reason I decided to order up season 1 from Netflix was because there are characters named Locke and Rousseau, and any show bold enough to reference social contract philosophers on network television has to be worth a look.

I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit that I'm kind of addicted to it now. Not only is it well written, by people who are smart enough to understand social contract philosophy, but it keeps my brain entertained looking for clues and patterns. And if there's one thing my brain enjoys more than anything else, it's over-analyzing even the tiniest of inconsequential details to the point of being ridiculous.

I've found myself anxiously awaiting the mailman's arrival whenever I'm due for a new disc from Netflix. Which presents a problem, even above and beyond the obvious patheticness. My Lost DVDs are taking at least a day longer to reach me by mail than other DVDs mailed out at the same time. They're taking 2-3 days longer to reach Netflix than other DVDs I mail out at the same time. It's just the Lost discs. All the other movies come and go through the mail like normal. I'm baffled. Maybe someone at the Post Office likes Lost too, but is too cheap to get Netflix or buy the DVDs? Is that possible?

The same part of my brain that likes trying to decipher characters' tattoos and rearrange the letters of their names to look for anagrams, is having a field day with the postal mystery as well. There has to be an explanation. I just don't know what it is.

However, I do know that "DVDS LOST IN THE MAIL" can be rearranged to say "I HANDLED TIM'S VOLTS."

*The Harry Potter and Sex and the City franchises are the obvious exceptions here.