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Blogs by Stephen Kata
Woids 12/8/2011 8:28:31 AM
The things I miss most since retiring from carrying mail are the words -- the strange and funny names on letters, the things people write on the outside of them, and the little signs on patrons' doors.
For example, my favorite name ever on a letter is "Robin Banks." Here's a good case for my contention that prospective parents should be required to pretend for a week that they're teachers calling out their kids' names in class, before they saddle them with whatever monikers they have in mind.
Folks are always writing things on letters trying to tell someone the person doesn't live at that address, etc. One wanted me to know the addressee (I hoped), had died. They wrote: "Diseased." Another one wrote: "Does not leave here." I realize it was an attempt to tell me the person had moved, but I couldn't help wondering if they had that condition where you're afraid to go outside. My favorite in this category? – "No such person has ever lived."
The little notes on doors were the best, like the one that should be a slogan for use of proper punctuation: "Please knock doorbell out." (Shoot! I forgot my hammer.) And the house with the apparently retarded doorbell: "Press in and hold – slow doorbell." And one of my favorites: "Do not knock – ring doorbell loudly." (I never did find the volume control on that one.)
I had a parcel to deliver once at a house which had a sign on the front door stating, "If no one answers go to back door." I proceeded as directed only to find the sign, "If no one answers go to front door." I spent twenty minutes trying to deliver that dumb parcel. (Just kidding.) My favorite in this division: "Doorbell does not work. Please rap loudly." I was tempted to perform an extemporaneous rap song about putting their parcel between the doors because it wouldn't fit in the mailbox, but restrained myself.
A mailman's job boring and colorless? Not on your life.
