My Dearest Sister Katherine,
Today, December 16, 2014, your cookies were safely posted at our local Post Office at 9:11 a.m. I arrived there at 8:45a.m. and was 8th in the line of folks inside the shelter of the office lobby, but outside the locked inner door to the actual feeding troughs. More folks came in, groaning at the sight of the eight of us, as they became numbers 9, 10, 11, 12, 13……by the time the horse-race stall gates were lifted and the gun went ‘BANG!’
Little do I guess that at that exact moment, I will see out the fishbowl front windows of the Post Offense, hordes of people crawling out of their cars with boxes, bags, bundles and little children, some with even their breakfast, no sleeping bags that I can see. They come flowing in the door, one little boy pushing the button of his talking “Buzz Lightyear” toy that says: “This is an Intergalactic Emergency” and “Do you know these life forms?” and “There seems to be no sign of intelligent Life anywhere…” and “Because of YOU, the future of this entire universe is in jeopardy!” and “I’ve set my laser from stun to kill.” This little boy is about three.
Meanwhile, in line, the woman behind me says: “I’ve been on vacation, all I want is my held mail. I came here yesterday afternoon and I couldn’t even get in the door. The line went down the sidewalk!” And then one of the Post Clerks appears from behind the Oz curtain (that secret place of mystery) and he looks at our serpentine line, smiling and says: “I’m sorry, but we’re closed today, it’s a Holiday for us.” A few people actually laugh instead of throwing their industrial-sized tape guns at him and his happy face. He says, “Just kidding.” I laugh, holding no tape gun, just a book of poetry I brought, figuring I could probably finish the whole 130 pages while waiting at the pearly gates. Meanwhile, I have become used to the odd scent of the man my age who is standing pretty close behind me, which in another situation would be inappropriate, but in this situation it is unavoidable. I figure he was enjoying reading over my shoulder. I was on this page:
Earth, by John Hall Wheelock: “A planet doesn’t explode of itself,” said drily The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air – “That they were able to do it is proof that highly intelligent beings must have been living there.”
Just as the postal clerk finishes nearly igniting mass panic with his announcement, the Buzz Lightyear figure says: “Do you know these life forms?” and the boy’s mother says to the boy that Buzz needs to be quiet in the Post Office, to which Buzz answers: “There seems to be no sign of intelligent Life anywhere…” The mother says: “shhhhh,” Buzz says: “Because of YOU, the future of this entire universe is in jeopardy!” But the bed-haired, sleep-wrinkled customers don’t seem to hear the beauty of Buzz’s pertinent replies to the postal clerk’s announcement and its aftershock. I think it’s because they actually started to believe that the Post Office was closed today, because so many other things were already going wrong for them that this would be logical and likely that the Post Office would be closed the very day they put aside vanity and show up in public in their soft pants (pajamas) and stocking caps to hide the bed hair.
So, Kathie, your $20 bill you gave me for mailing your cookies covered the cost = $15.50. I had the .50, but your $10 tip for me doing this for you got reduced to $5. Had the box cost only $10, and I was that #20 person I passed when exiting the fairgrounds, I would have surely felt I earned the generous gratuitous. If it had only cost $1.95, I would have earned the $18.05, even. So your box, being $15.50, has me keeping the change guilt-free only because I was #8 and not #22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35……….. If I had been any of those numbers, you would also have owed me an additional $50, one dollar for every Buzz Lightyear sentence. Ya.
Your loving Sister,
Diana
