So, I thought I would provide everyone with some follow up on that mystery cash I received in the mail.
Internet searches didn’t turn up much. ”concocorp.com” is an anonymously registered Go Daddy domain. It seems this random act has happened once before: I tweeted with a woman who received the exact same letter (and money) in 2009.
I emailed “Tom Riddle” and received a response:
Dear Miss Lemieux:
Your grant was the result of a request from an individual.
Thank you for your inquiry and if I can be of any further assistance please let me know.
Sincerely,
Tom
I wrote back, thanked “Tom” and pressed “him” one more time on the origin of the money. Hey, you can’t blame me, can you?
Dear Miss Lemieux:
I’m afraid we are not at liberty to disclose your benefactor. Hopefully it is enough to know that someone somewhere thought of you and wanted to make you feel special, even for just a day.
If I can be of any further service please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thanks,
Tom
And yes, I have decided that knowing someone out there was thinking of me is enough. The most interesting part of this whole mystery has been the interest of others. I have received messages and texts and emails and tweets. People are fascinated. Some folks are embracing it, many find it creepy or weird, and a large amount of people seem to think there is some kind of catch. I doubt I will ever know where this came from, but I believe there is a lesson here: randomly good things, pure in intention, can happen.
How am I going to spend the money? I don’t know. Some of it is going to be paid forward in some way. I may, in fact, use some of it towards frivolity as requested by Mr. Riddle. At this point, it really isn’t about the money. It is about this really neat thing that happened to me once that I will never forget. It has been pretty great.
