The Couch Is Left Holding The Bag

Of Holding. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The Pony has been working an odd schedule ever since he started. Which is pretty much NOT a schedule, but a weekly list put up for all employees to check. A couple days, he was told he wasn't needed, less than an hour before his shift. Other weeks, his scheduled day off was shelved the day before, and he had to go in. He doesn't complain. He takes whatever they give him. Monday, he says he goes in at 3:30, for a half-day, because they think they'll have some LLVs back for him to drive one. Since The Pony and MAW (Middle-Aged Woman) started, three new employees have joined the force.

Anyhoo... The Pony mainly goes in at 9:00, and leaves whenever they run out of work for him. If he finishes his route, they send him to help others. He's fine with that, too. Last week, he had a couple of 11-hour days. But he was off Tuesday and Thursday. He's never had to work a Sunday yet. He says this office doesn't do that, although others do, to deliver Amazon packages.

Anyhoo... The Pony worked until after 8:30 on Friday night. He came home and tossed some frozen fish sticks in the oven, eschewed his nightly 2-hour big triangle tub soak for a rinse-off in his own shower while the fish sticks were baking, and went to bed.

Saturday morning, he walked down half of the 13 rail-less basement steps to tell me bye, as usual. It was 8:05. Nothing different from any other day.

Saturday evening, Farmer H hollered to me in the kitchen as I was putting the cherry and lime flavoring in my magical elixir.

"I'd like to know how your little Pony is delivering mail today, with his mail bag sitting here on the couch!"

"What? I guess they have extra. Like they use for training, before they give them each their own kit. Maybe an old leather one, like they used to carry. I'm sure it didn't keep him from working. And he's not the type to get up early and leave like he's working, if he had some secret mission to accomplish. He'd sleep in."

"If you say so. But there it is. I don't know why he brings it in. He oughta just leave it in his car."

 

"Maybe there's something he's afraid might get stolen, that he's responsible for. But I'm pretty sure they turn in their scanners at the end of the day. He might be missing stuff he had in it, though. Hand sanitizer or something."

When I went to sit on the short couch to devote 10 minutes to Now Is the Time We Talk About the Most Recent Things You've Done Wrong (unclear credit card charges with no receipt) before Farmer H left for the auction... I saw the bag.

"That's not The Pony's mail bag! That's his personal bag. The one he carries his laptop in. I gave it to him for Christmas a couple years ago. He was just talking about it yesterday. How much he loves that bag, because it was good for carrying all his stuff at college. It's called a Bag of Holding. I ordered it from ThinkGeek, back before they went out of business, or joined up with GameStop. That is NOT The Pony's mail bag."

Yeah. The Pony had his mail bag all along. It was his Bag of Holding that the long couch was holding. It's a gray, padded messenger bag with assorted (some-zippered) pockets, and a cross-body padded shoulder strap. Not a dark blue nylon mail bag with a flap and inside dividers.