Friday, August 21, 2009

Our Beloved Mailman! (NOT REALLY)



He's not just in the movies...he lives in my rural town and he's my mailman. He may not be quite so maniacal, but he's crazy in his own special way. For instance:

  • We live down a long driveway, which apparently is a real inconvenience for our mailman. So by the time he gets to our house, he won't trouble himself to get out of his car. He will lay on his horn (we're not talking a little tap...I mean BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!)until we come out of our house and get our mail ourselves.

  • Placement of mail in the actual mailbox is optional. I am resigned to the fact that I may have to hunt in the weeds along the ditch or quickly snag a package that has been rubber-banded around my mailbox to prevent someone from tampering with it.

  • The mail in our mailbox may or may not be addressed to us, but sorting it appears to be our problem.

  • A few days ago I spent a good 5 minutes trying to dislodge my package from my mailbox. Heaven forbid our mailman should have to take time out of his busy schedule to traverse our ever-winding driveway, so he instead used his time to devise a way to fit a package larger than the actual mailbox INSIDE the mailbox. I don't know how he did it, but this maneuver was a real work of genius. I felt so silly standing there analyzing the situation and wrestling with the box that wouldn't budge that I actually glanced over my shoulder a couple of times at the neighbor's house to make sure no one was standing at the window pointing and laughing at me. In the end, I did what any sensible woman would do. I gave up and assigned the impossible task to my husband, who did eventually retrieve the package.

I had seriously considered contacting the postal service and complaining about the horrible service we receive from our mailman, but after talking it over with my husband, we both realized something: We get a kick out of this. As frustrating and time-consuming as it can be to deal with our postal servant's shortcomings, his antics always make us laugh. It's just not something we're willing to give up at the moment. We'll see if we reach our breaking point someday, but for now, we'll just keep living on our real-life version of the Funny Farm.

4 comments:

  1. I got such a kick out of this! I can't wait to see what your mailman does next. Please keep us updated! I have a wonderful mailman...when he does our route. Unfortunately it's someone new every other day. But I can always tell when it's my favorite! Everything is nice and tidy!

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  2. Steph, that was awesome! I laughed my guts out! That was worthy of a Daily Record column! You're a great writer! I am very impressed! Love ya, Mama!

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  3. Oh-no, I wondered if we'll have the same mailman in our new house. I met him the other day. He made sure I contacted him before I put up my new box & not the PO.

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  4. You have made me more thankful for our mailman. He does beep, but he doesn't lay on the horn. Instead of rubber-banding things to our mailbox, he puts them in a bag and hangs them on the flag.

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