Welcome to a new week, people.
I am very happy tonight. I will tell you why. It is not something that I have discussed here before, as it was a personal problem bedevilling me and I felt embarrassed discussing it.
(No. Not that problem. I will keep that one to myself, thank you very much.)
For the last several weeks, I have had a very difficult time getting my mail. I would go to the mailbox allocated to me at the super mailbox close to my home. I would stick the key in, and nothing much would happen. I would fiddle with the key for a moment until the box opened and revealed its usual assortment of bills and flyers from real estate agents wanting me to sell them my house or wanting me to buy a house they were selling. The usual crap.
The problem was really exacerbated when I tried to close the mailbox door. Extricating the key from the lock was an adventure. I would fiddle with it, and shake it and pull it and plead with it. I would brace one leg against the super mailbox and pull with all my might, to no avail. Finally, sometimes after 2 full minutes, the lock would release the key, knowing in its evil little heart that I would be back the next day to pick up the mail again.
Which I would.
Day after day, week after week, for the better part of a month, the stupid lock on my mailbox would play its little mind games with me, taunting me, pushing me closer and closer to the brink. Every day, getting the key into the lock and then out of the lock, became no easier. There was no learning how to make do with this situation.
Finally, 3 days ago, on a day off work, on my way to the farewell lunch I told you about last week, I stopped by the post office in my community and told them of my plight. I produced some documentation proving I was who I claimed to be. In return, they promised that the lock would be replaced. They gave me one key for the lock, but told me that it may take a business day or two for this lock to be swapped out, and the mail had already been sorted for that day. It would not be Friday. I told them it would be fine.
After the farewell lunch, and after running some other errands, I got the mail and struggled once again with the lock, but the glint in my eye and the determination evident in my furrowed brow seemed somehow to frighten it, and the fight to get my key back was not as fierce. It knew the jig was up.
I got home from work this evening and went to pick up the mail. My heart sank as I recalled the words of the woman at the post office, saying that there was a good chance that the lock would not be replaced until Tuesday, but I wanted my mail and nothing was going to stop me.
I approached the mailbox. "You don't like me, and I don't like you", I muttered under my breath almost loud enough for the 10 year old girl walking toward me to hear. "But I have to do what I have to do, and you are not going to stop me."
I inserted the key. I met with no resistance! I opened the mailbox. I don't think I had ever been so happy to see a Visa bill in my life! The second post office key was also in the box, and I grabbed it and held it aloft as if I were Mufasa holding Simba and showing him his new world. I then closed the mailbox door with ease and removed my key therefrom with no problem whatsoever.
I have had a most pleasant evening. It is 10:30 at night. I am in my recroom. We watched an episode of "Banshee" that was particularly violent. And the second key to the mailbox was presented to Patricia earlier this evening, and it damn well better be in her purse and on a keychain by the time she reads this.
Ah! It is the little victories in life that make living so worthwhile.
See you tomorrow, my lovelies.
Bevboy
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