Pretty Sure Farmer H Would Build Me A Rumpus Shack If I Asked

What the world needs these days are more rumpus rooms! No, I'm not talking about subterranean, wood-paneled hide-a-ways where parents can play pinochle, teens can make out, tweens can construct Cootie, or tots can be sent to pummel the bejeebers out of a Bobo Doll. I'm talking about a room for kicking someone's rumpus! Someone quite deserving...

Remember Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's call for rumpuses to roll at the dead-mouse-smelling post office? Well...today she had a chance to plant a kick on one of those rumpuses! But refrained. Because she's refined like that.

Neither of my boys got their letter last week. The ones I mailed on Tuesday morning due to the Monday holiday. The ones that usually take two days to arrive. Not the #1 son, two hours away in College Town, nor The Pony 8.5 hours away in Norman OK. Which means they didn't get their monthly expense check. #1 was the most hurt by this turn of events, his bills being due on Wednesday (two days from now) and his name being on the rental house and utilities. I don't know if he lets his four housemates run a tab, or if they pay him on that date. But I do know that he is used to getting his money on the 15th, and it is now the 17th, and the piper needs a-payin'.

This morning I left home at 10:35 to head to the bank to deposit cash in #1's account, and to the Devil's Playground for my weekly torture. I had the letters for this week ready to send the boys. Mail goes out at 11:00. That's what it says on the drive-up mailboxes, anyway. And the slot in the wall inside, if you like smelling dead mouse before noon. I was sorting out the letters and a DISH bill (see, there's proof that Mrs. HM DOES pay her bills when she receivers them) from three winning scratcher tickets that were jammed in my purse, and turned to slip them into the snout of the official U.S. Postal Service receptacle, when a motion caught my peripheral vision.

IT WAS THE POSTMASTER!

It was the lady who runs things in that little dead-mouse-smelling building, who is most often found behind the counter during the hours of your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine. I know the typed-up sheet of business hours is always changing, but I'm pretty sure she can't do that with the pick-up times. That is stuck on the snout of the mailbox, on a sticky label that looks official.

PostMistress was carrying one of those white plastic tubs to collect the mail. I said, "Whoops!" Because she had kind of snuck up on me, sitting there in T-Hoe rummaging for my mailables. Besides, the time was only 10:52! I cry shenanigans! She was picking up early! What if she decided to do that at midnight on April 14? How about that? What if she picked up at 11:52 then, and caused people to pay a hefty tax penalty for late filing?

PostMistress did not respond to my "Whoops!" She had a dour look upon her mug, and I did not want to push my luck and have her single out my letters from the top of the pile for ill treatment. I would have loved to harangue her, though, about my boys' missing letters. And checks.

If ever a rumpus needed a swift kick, I'd say I saw it today. Bent over at the drive-up mailbox.