The dead-mouse-smelling post office has done it again. I'm sure you're all gasping in shock, holding your head in your hands, an expression on your face like young Macaulay Culkin with the aftershave in Home Alone. "But Mrs. HM, I can't believe you're having trouble with your mail delivery!" Au contraire. We all know such an occurrence is most certainly not rare.
The creeks are up, so Farmer H and I (and all the other denizens of our Hillmomban enclave) have been taking the alternate route to town, turning left at EmBee to wind around some other back roads, rather than turn right and go up the hill on the most direct blacktop road to town. I suppose that detour put us at the end of the mailperson's route on Monday. Because when I returned from town with my lesser (Polar Pop) version of a 44 oz Diet Coke around noon-thirty, the mail truck had just arrived.
I pulled off the side of our gravel road, next to HOS's (Farmer H's Oldest Son's) bus stop shed, to wait for the delivery. I was expecting a package. My email told me so! A set of DVDs that I'd ordered myself for my own birthday. In fact, Sunday night the tracking number had said delivery would be Monday, and further scrutiny showed that my package was OUT FOR DELIVERY. I was kind of excited about getting my present.
Imagine my surprise when I opened EmBee's lax mouth, and found only a casino promotions postcard, my Sprint bill, and a junk mail envelope offering Farmer H cheaper car insurance. Of course I knew that my package would not fit in EmBee's metal tubish figure. But there should have been a key. A key to the lock boxes, installed there for packages. Surely I was missing something!
I held the three items of mail, leaving EmBee empty. I leaned over and looked deep into her gullet. No key. I reached my hand inside. Felt all the way to the back. No corners inside EmBee! She's a pipe! Curved. I could feel all the way to the back wall. If EmBee was human, I would have triggered her gag reflex.
With no one around, I opened the black mailbox to EmBee's left. Shifted their mail, feeling for a key. Maybe it had been put in the wrong box. No key. Then I opened the white mailbox to EmBee's right. Shifted their mail, feeling for a key. NO KEY! Well! Wasn't THAT craptastic? I could see the lock boxes, three with keys still stuck in the locks, and one without. The keys are stuck there after you turn the lock. If a package is inside, there's no key showing, because it's in somebody's mailbox. So I had hope. But no key.
When I got home and settled in my dark basement lair, I checked my tracking number first thing. DELIVERED, it said! Sweet Gummi Mary! What in the Not-Heaven? WHERE was my package? I know it was coming by USPS. That's what the tracking information said. Surely they hadn't called in dastardly FedEx to bring it from the dead-mouse-smelling post office to the Mansion! I hadn't seen anything left in the driveway when I got home.
Wait a minute! What time was that package delivered? Maybe it HAD been brought by FedEx, and the dogs ate it already. As far as I knew, the only unusual dietary supplement they'd enjoyed was an Adidas slide, dark blue with white stripes, which was out in the front yard. I looked at the details of the tracking number. My package had been delivered at 12:29. That's when I saw the mailperson! I knew that, because I got a call from The Veteran as I was coming up the driveway, and my call log showed it came in at 12:31. So the mailperson had at least scanned my package and said it was delivered.
WHO HAD MY PACKAGE?
I called Farmer H to see where he was, thinking he could look around the carport and garage and front yard.
"Where are you?"
"Just coming up to the mailboxes."
"STOP! My packages is delivered, but there's no key, and I can't find the box. I saw the mail get delivered, and looked everywhere for the key, but there wasn't one!"
"Okay. Here. I'm going to look. Oh, here's a key."
"WHAT? Was it in the back?"
"No. Laying right in the front. I've got your package. Coming home."
I guess the mailperson forgot to leave the key, and came back after I'd taken out the mail. Or else it was in someone else's box, but they wouldn't have known whose to put it in. Or would have opened the lock box, and got the key stuck in there.
Something is fishy at the dead-mouse-smelling post office.
2 comments:
Was the key in front INSIDE embee? or laying in front on the ground where it might have fallen unnoticed as you eagerly pulled out the other mail? I was happy with my mail delivery yesterday, I'd ordered four books two weeks ago and they all arrived at once. I almost skipped my way back into the house.
River,
Yes, according to Farmer H, the key was laying in the front of EmBee. She's a pipe, you know. Her door is a round disk of metal with hinges at the bottom, that pulls down so you can get the mail out of her mouth. Magnets at the top of the roof of her mouth hold her flap closed. Anyhoo...Farmer H said the key was laying right there, for him to see as soon as he opened the door. I'd been very careful getting the mail out, because I knew my package was supposed to be there that day.
I'm happy that your mail is delivered correctly, in a timely manner!
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