The Mailman Cometh

I know the poor blog has been neglected for too long.  With most of our family using Facebook, we found it very easy to post pictures of Gavin there for the Grandmas to get their little boy fix.  And, so the poor blog has fallen to the wayside.  On top of that, Dave was in the throes of graduate school, and I was busy trying to hold it all together.  But I miss writing.  I'm on a three week break from work; let's see if I can start it back up again.

Yesterday, we drove to Jackson, Mississippi, to meet Bob and Judy and Gavin.  Gavin had spent the week at my parents house and then Bob and Judy's house while I finished my contract at work with no school district daycare in session.  I could have hired a sitter for 4 days, but it's important that Gavin get to spend time with his grandparents.  While driving, I noticed a billboard advertising the lottery jackpot is at $101 million.  So I posed the question to Dave, "What would you do if you won a million dollars?"  We discussed and then the question came back to me.  While "write" wasn't one of my answers yesterday, I would write.  I have LOTS of stories from my career as a high school assistant principal.  But, I have lots of stories.  I think I'm damn funny at times.  Maybe others would find me amusing, too.  But I digress . . .

Dave and I have different opinions about a lot of things.  One is about putting outgoing mail in the mailbox in front of our house.  I grew up in the country.  My parents still live there.  The closest post office is 5 miles away, but that post office doesn't deliver mail.  So, my parents' mail comes from the next closest post office in Ranger; it does deliver mail.  So, growing up, if you wanted to mail something, you put it in the mailbox and raised the red flag.  My mom ran the poultry farm, while Daddy worked up until 1996.  No one took mail to the post office unless it was a package that needed special postage.  I grew up watching for the mailman (even though it might be a lady, it was the mailman), who would come driving through in his personal vehicle with a light on the top.  The preferred vehicle had a bench seat in the front because the mailman sat in the middle of the front seat, driving with his left hand and left foot and stretching across the seat with his right hand to put the mail in the mailbox.

In 2001, when Dave and I bought our first house in Austin, our neighborhood had a set of locked mailboxes.  For us, the mailbox was just across the street.  And, if we needed to mail anything, we walked across and slipped the envelope into the mail receptacle.  In 2005, when we moved to Trophy Club, we got our very own mail box.  It's bricked to match the house (it really needs to be redone, but again, I digress).  There is no little red flag.  How am I supposed to let the mailman know to stop?  Aw, we get mail most days so he'll be stopping.  But, for the most part, I take whatever needs to be mailed into work with me and drop it in the outgoing mail bin.  I would have to walk all the way down my walkway to the mailbox if I wanted to mail it from home; I walk past that outgoing mail bin at the office several times a day.  And, so for the longest, we've been fine with this arrangement.  But, now we are entering one of those glorious times of the year when I am not on contract!  How will I return my Netflix DVD so I can get the next one in my queue?  (Which happens to be Better off Dead, for nostalgia's sake.)  In my mind, I'll walk my happy little self right down to the end of my walkway and put it in the mailbox.  That makes Dave nervous.  What if someone steals the mail?  (Hmmm. . . that's a Federal offense, right? . . . and we live in Trophy Club, where we've accidentally left the garage door open at night and find a note from the police department that they closed it for us at 1:12am.  Well, that was when we first moved in, the police department isn't so friendly these days.  Last week, Dave received a citation for watering at 0048 on Monday.  NO watering on Monday.  The sprinkler was finishing it's cycle.  He had forgotten to water at 0001 on Sunday--our day to water.)

So back to, "What if someone takes the mail?"  Really?  It'll be OK.  Maybe they'll watch Nurse Jackie and then return it for us.  No one is going to take the mail from our mailbox.  For one, there's no red flag; how will they know to stop?

Isn't it funny that two people can spend 20 years together (yes, really, we started dating 20 years ago), and find little things that you've just never really talked about--other than passing conversations--and have that as the basis of a walk-down-memory-lane post about the mail.  I'm sure I could write lots of stories just about the mail:  Gavin's incessant "need" to get a package; Gavin trying to convince my parents to send him a package quickly so that it could get to his house before he does; is Saturday delivery really necessary any more; Amazon is using USPS to deliver packages on Sunday.