Culture: "Coming to Get You Worley..."

TORONTO, ONTARIO - My mind is known for making bizarre connections. Someone can mention a number significant in railroading, say "231," and my mind will drift off to a certain diesel locomotive that I was involved in saving. Mention being the "King of Pain" and 1983 song by the Police will be in my mind until something else pushes it out.

Sometimes, this can lead to quite a bit of amusement. One of the previous residents of my apartment had the last name of Worley. To this day, I'll occasionally receive mail addressed to this individual that I have to return to Canada Post.

It just so happens that an episode of The Adventures of Harry Nile, a radio drama series from Jim French Productions, once included a character named Worley. Worley was a war veteran that was receiving calls on his answering machine in the middle of the night with the message, "We're coming to get you Worley, so start sweating." When Nile investigates, he discovers that Worley was actually so guilty over something had happened in wartime that he was sleepwalking and calling himself from phone booths to leave the message each night, and what he really needed was counseling.

Whenever my mind sees that relatively-rare name on mail, I can't help but think of that Harry Nile episode. And the fact that mail could just as easily deliver a threatening message as a telephone answering machine makes the whole thing somehow slightly less irrational. "They're coming to get you Worley, so start sweating."

I guess that makes my life more interesting than just sighing over misdirected mail.