the mail, again

I just finished a letter to Bee, sealed it, slapped a Wild Thing on it, and headed out to the nearest drop box, since our afternoon mail delivery had already come. I was walking along, thinking about the fine weather and about fond postal memories, places I've lived and the routines that went with the mail, when an oversize vehicle whipped out of the Starbuck's parking lot and stopped, nearly in the street, to wait for a break in traffic. Never once did he look in my direction and see me, innocent pedestrian that I was. I wanted to preserve my right of way on the sidewalk but I couldn't think of anything to get his attention short of slapping his hood or shouting "hey you, I'm trying to walk here." I was tentatively stepping out, thinking the movement might catch his eye, when, predictably, he nearly ran me over. Or would've if I hadn't noticed his complete lack of awareness. There I would've lain, on the pavement, envelope clutched in a death grip, waiting for a more kindly passerby to scrape my body from the pavement and drop Bee's letter into the box (I was nearly there). How sad that would have been, a posthumous letter. Thank goodness it didn't come to that.

So back to the topic I was contemplating before I was so rudely nearly run over - the mail. A favorite topic. In this apartment, the ritual goes thusly. A postal worker usually comes by in the early afternoon, one or so, usually before I've had a chance to finish a letter. I can hear the mail clank into the box by the door and sometimes I'm so quick to check it that the USPS employee is still stuffing things into our neighbor's box. There've been a lot of wedding invite reply cards lately, which makes it necessary to do a thorough swipe of the box for any stragglers. The box is three blocks down, a nice little stroll.

At college I would check my mail up to three times a day - the boxes were a flight down from the cafeteria and conveniently on the way from my dorm to meals. I never locked my box and always located it by the Tahoe sticker a previous student had left on the box. Using the lock involved an average of three tries, about ten turns apiece. More than it was worth. Sometimes it got locked accidentally and I had to go look up the combo in the mailroom. Pain.

Even worse was the set-up in London (and even greater was my thirst for mail). The mailroom was in another building owned by the same organization, the same building as the computer lab and the laundry room. In Galway the mail came with a nice thunk through the slot in the door and one of us would race down the stairs for it. I never tire of thinking about letters and their not-so-little journeys from mailbox to mailbox.