Junk mail can be entertaining.

Well, sometimes.

There’s one mailing list that I’m on jumps out at me when it’s used: it misspells my first name in a unique way, and one which creates a “name” never before used by anyone; at least, in any English-speaking country. And it appears that this mailing list is marketed as a list of current undergraduate students. (Its genesis evidently was either Duke or Duke’s alumni association, but somehow the degree and entry date information associated with my name got changed from the two-year MBA program beginning in 2000 to an undergraduate program starting in 2002 or later.)

Last week, I got junk mail from the US Army, exhorting me to join up. And if I’d send back the postage-paid card so they could send me more propaganda, they’d send me a t-shirt. Not entirely sure why the Army wants excessively aged and out-of-shape recruits, especially to rappel out of helicopters (prominently pictured in the ad), but there you are: your tax dollars, hard at work.

This week, I heard from NYU’s Stern School of Business, inviting me to take part in this summer’s program for undergraduates (the Stern Advantage Program, which sounds like it ought to be a finishing school for dominatrices) that serves as a 6-week introduction to business school. That's six weeks, and $8500. (Just to be clear, they want me to take part as a paying student, not as an instructor.)

To make my mailbox even more interesting, I also receive junk mail addressed to the parents of this nonexistent student, offering me loans at bargain rates to finance the remaining years of the student’s undergraduate career. Those offers go directly into the trash, though