Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Various Artists 'The Best Of James Bond 30th Anniversary Collection'

I just finished up with my work out. It does feel good to exert and sweat again since I had to put off my workouts.

Going up to see Penny with the not fully unexpected extended stay, I had to put off the workouts. Then when I got back, I resumed them and pulled a groin muscle. So, I took about a month off for the muscle’s recovery.

About two weeks ago, I pulled another muscle in my shoulder while loading up the first trailer for Murphy in the Morning’s “Rolling Relief”. That muscle still hasn’t healed, but I decided to push onward with the workout program.

I’m playing it safe by taking it slow. I’m only doing half of what I was doing when I stopped.

On to other things… I’m becoming a little concerned about my father. He’s become quite obsessed about the United States Postal Service. Not about the Postal Service in general, only about the service in our neighborhood.

Ever since I was a little kid, Dad (when he was home) would always rush out to the mailbox as if he was expecting a package full of gold to arrive. Apparently, not all things change over time. With the ears of a dog, he hears the mail truck in the vicinity and his feet guide his zombie like mind to the mailbox where he rummages through posts from far off distant bill collectors.

One Saturday when I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a poorly constructed sign taped to the mailbox post. When the wind calmed I could see that it was made with a sheet of notebook paper. It was positioned length wise in a horizontal fashion, taped at the top and bottom for reasonable assurance against the wind blowing it free. Written on the paper with a blue Sharpie were the words “Night Mail”.

Granted, it was about 5:30 in the afternoon when I pulled in, but I had to laugh on the inside because I know that Dad takes it very seriously.

This past Tuesday, my father went as far as to call the route supervisor about Monday’s mail arriving at 6:20 that evening. During the conversation, my father asked for that his supervisor’s name and asked to be connected to her. He was then put on hold for what he felt was an unreasonable amount of time so; he hung up and called them back. This time, he asked for the top banana and she said that she was going to look into it.

Dad does have one good point… The older folks in the neighborhood check their mailbox for most of the day until they just give up thinking that there’s no mail for them on that day. Then the check or package that they’re expecting sits all night in the mailbox or on the front porch until the next delivery arrives.

The things that concern me the most about his obsession… Is this going to happen to me one day? If and when I become retired, will I have nothing better to do with my time than worry about something that I now perceive as crazy?

I’ve always looked at mail delivery as something that I can never count on. That way, I’ll never get my hopes up only to have them dashed when something that I’m expecting doesn’t arrive.

The only thing that I look forward to in my mailbox is another DVD from Netflix.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:32 PM

    I'm not as obsessive about the mail as your dad, but I gotta agree with him. Our mail service sucks, and has sucked ever since they took away our regular carrier and have a different "floater" doing our route every day. We can never count on our mail much before 5pm, and on several occasions they've missed our daily delivery altogether. We know this because we got *two* deliveries the following day - one very early in the morning, as if hoping their supervisor didn't catch on that they'd ditched our route the day before.

    Oh yeah, did I mention mail service sucks?

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  2. Anonymous11:50 PM

    When you retire, you have two options: Watch the Weather Channel 10 hours a day, or stake out the mailbox.

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  3. Anonymous1:58 AM

    I have never left a sign on the box before (perhaps because we have the box attached to the house, right there by the front door, 3" from the huge front window)but I too share your dad's obsession with the daily delivery. I don't even know why, the only mail I ever get is library notices. Luckily, our next door neighbor's dog barks at everything, so she provides ample warning of when the mail person approaches. We also got a double delivery a few weeks ago... though both in the afternoon. They didn't even try to hide it. Now I don't feel so bad. I thought maybe I was going nuts.

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  4. I had no idea the USPS was so bad.

    So my father is swimming against the current with his obsession?

    Somebody should tell him. But it ain't gonna be me!

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