Commentary: Sometimes a jewelry box is really just another box

If your office is anything like mine, deliveries that don't appear to be of the usual day-in-and-day-out variety pique an inordinate amount of curiosity.

On Monday, our classified manager walked into my office with a jewelry box (about the size one would expect to contain a necklace or some other such item, I was later told) and said that a woman had dropped it off for me at the reception desk.

Now to be quite honest, I don't receive a lot of jewelry boxes at work -- or at home for that matter -- so my co-workers were quite eager to see what had been sent and who had sent it. (They weren't as curious as they were a couple years ago when I received a several dozen helium balloons, a stuffed bear and three really sweet silk ties for Valentine's Day, but that's a topic for another column).

I have to admit that I was a bit stumped about "what" and "who" as well.

I'm in a transition period as far as dating is concerned (nice way of saying I'm in a bit of a slump), and I was quite certain that I hadn't imbibed to the point of excess at the Fine Arts Center Masterpiece Gala or The Famous on Friday or Saturday night and pledged undying fidelity and devotion to anyone -- so there really wasn't any reason to expect an unsolicited token of affection.

So, after realizing that my curious co-workers weren't going to leave my office until I looked inside, I untied the bow and opened the box and found -- a news release.

The company in question was touting the success of its most recent public relations/marketing campaign, and obviously hasn't paid any attention to any of my past columns about cheesy PR presentations. I'm glad they considered the campaign to be successful, although I think it might have been considered more of a success if they hadn't had to use a gimmick to convince us media types that it was.

The story really should end there, but I made the mistake of mentioning it during my weekly torturing, sorry, session, with my therapist. (One of these days I really am going to learn to simply keep my mouth shut when she asks if anything interesting has happened.)

She, of course, wanted to know why I was reluctant to open the box, and when I tried to protest that I hadn't been reluctant, she informed me that we weren't going to spend the entire hour discussing the nuances of denial or my inability to grasp the concept.

Given our love/hate relationship, I decided to turn the tables and told her that since she was the psychological professional, I'd defer to her expertise and she could tell me why I was reluctant (which I'm still not convinced I was).

Next time I'm just going to try to answer the question.

We spent the next hour debating, sparring, whatever you'd like to call it, my "obvious" fear of commitment. And I don't think I made any points when I tried to use the fact that I've been in a "relationship" with her longer than any other woman I know who I'm not related to as an example of proof that I'm not commitment phobic.

I even tried to turn the conversation to the fact that I "obviously" have unresolved issued with my PR cousins. Didn't work.

When my time was up, I was exhausted; she seemed elated -- almost the mirror image of my co-workers' disappointment that they couldn't grill me about my unsolicited gift and my new love interest, and my elation that the box was simply a silly PR gimmick.

Way too weird

Got an e-mail last week about a new Internet site that kinda makes me wonder where we're going as a society.

DoMyStuff.com allows users to "outsource their life" -- which basically means that you can hire someone to do just about anything that you don't want to do yourself.

The e-mail listed a few of the more unique tasks that have been posted:

*A man in New York needed help cleaning his ears.

*A woman in Atlanta wanted someone to teach her to be girlie.

*A man in New York wanted someone to wait in line for an I- phone.

*A man in New York needed help proposing to his girlfriend.

Tell me I'm not the only who sees the pattern there.

Think I'll suggest to my therapist that she start trolling the site for potential clients. Seems like men in New York have even bigger "issues" than I do.

Mike Boyd is editor of the Colorado Springs Business Journal.

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