We don’t trust emails anymore. They could be malicious viruses or complicated scams after your money. We don’t trust the news, either. Journalists lie and embellish. Wars have embedded correspondents. We don’t even trust the water anymore. We drink water out of bottles, even though the production of all those plastic bottles does more damage to the world and, in turn, to us than drinking water out of the tap could conceivably do. We mistrust, even, a photograph: is it real? Is it doctored? Is it computer-generated? And, with only the DaVinci Code serving as evidence, we don’t trust the Bible, even.

No. The only thing there is to trust, as far as I can tell, the last sancrosanct piece of information, the last inviolable artifact of communication, is the business card. We trust the business card. Business cards don’t lie. A token of commerce, a tag of identification, we implicitly believe the business card.

You put it on a business card, it must be true. With some stock from Staples and a home hp printer, I could make up all sorts of business cards. Well, I could be Silas, Official Photographer. Silas, Super Star Sex Stud. Silas, King of England.

I suppose obituaries, as well. We might still trust obituaries.

[update: 20 minutes after I finished writing this, at 11:30 pm, strangely, something is slipped through my mail slot. Murphy barked once. It is the size and the shape of a bookmark and it advertises a special: “5000 Business Cards. Full Color – 2 sides.” I often get the feeling that God is slipping me the punch lines to a million jokes. Only without the buildup it’s all nonsensical and absurd. On the back of the bookmark, it says: “Time is Important!” Indeed. Time is important.]

SS