Mail, Now and Later

Sitting at my desk, I have a view down my street. I hear it before I see it.  Rrrrrummmmble, silence, rrrrrummmmble, silence, the mail truck begins its journey up my street. It has six stops  before my mailbox.

It’s a quick trip to get the mail at the end of the driveway, I don’t grab a jacket. I try to time my arrival with the mail truck’s arrival. Then I will hustle back to the warmth of the house as I thumb through the envelopes, catalogs, and magazines.

Two mailboxes away, the truck does a spin around and heads back to a mailbox she has visited already. I stand at the end of the driveway, waiting, getting chilled by the wind. She fumbles around at the previous mailbox. I get colder. Finally, rrrrrummmmble, silence, rrrrrummmmble, silence, she gets to me.

I reach out for the mail she is handing me. “Wait, I have a package too,” she says. I wait. She confirms our house number, flip, flip, flip through one box. Flip, flip, flip through two more boxes. I’m getting colder. She can’t find the package. She looks back toward the Amazon boxes. “It won’t be from Amazon,” I tell her. “It could be drugs or a book.” I watch her flip through bags similar to our mail delivered prescriptions and a Thrift book wrapped package. I tell her to check those. She tells me they aren’t ours. “Sorry,” she says, then rrrrrummmmble, silence. She is off to the next box. I’m really cold and a bit aggravated.

An hour later, I’m still working at my desk. Rrrrrummmmble, silence, the mail truck is scooting back up our street and stops at our mailbox. I watch to see what goes into the mailbox. Two prescription bags and one book! I wait until she drives away before heading out to retrieve our mail.

I appreciate that she finally found our items and came back instead of waiting until tomorrow. This was not our regular mail person, so I will not judge her too harshly and I did get my book. (The Deadliest Creature in the World by Brenda Guiberson)