Showing posts with label mailbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mailbox. Show all posts

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Check Before You Throw Away

               Going to the mailbox lately has NOT been worth the trip as I had mentioned in an earlier post. The other day we received three pieces of mail addressed to Richard and one to “Current Resident” – that right there tells me it is probably not worth my time.  I would have just trashed it based on that, but handed it to Richard along with the other garbage (like his last opportunity to switch insurance or purchase a burial plot or apply for credit or something like that) and put the bill aside as I’ll need to pay it.

          He opened the one from the CDC Foundation – the one addressed to resident.  A bribe enclosed to be part of an important national study.  An actual bribe with a promise of more to come if only you’ll participate.  Richard said he had done it before and it paid out.  He said I could have a turn and get paid 10 dollars for it.

          As I sat down to start the survey Jaime came into the room and I asked her if she would like to do the survey instead.  She said she would – which was good as the selection of candidates that CDC was searching for would preferable fall into the ages of 18-24.  Jaime just happens to be 18. 

          The survey advised that the surveyor find a private moment and place to do the survey – to be answered honestly without the eyes of prying parents I guess.  Only in Jaime’s case she wasn’t going to take the time to fill it out on her own (they promised only 20 questions – or did it say 20 minutes?) as she doesn’t like to read but will willingly answer the questions if someone will read them to her.  Thus she did not do this privately as recommended but I knew her answers were truthful.

          The questions for this particular survey had to do with drugs – mostly e-cigs and vaping and other tobacco products but also bigotry and bullying – which Jaime doesn’t even recognize for herself but is aware of it as used against others.  For taking the survey she has been promised to receive not 10 but 20 dollars!  Just for answering a few a fair amount of questions.  Cool.

          Moral of the story: Do not throw anything away from CDC Foundation.  Take a peek at what is inside.  Perhaps that might apply to other “junk” mail as well.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Alexa, What Day is It?


Like the Holderness Family (here), I have lost track of days.  It did not help matters to see the mail truck come down our street twice yesterday.  Usually the time drags and doesn’t move quickly enough that it would have really been the next day, but I questioned the day when we saw the mail truck the second time.
            I don’t know that I have ever seen the mail truck repeat the route on the same day.  I like to think because I received a package that was so incredible large that there was not enough room in the box for the other three items.  But I think it had more to do with the ambulance across the street.
            That was also a unique situation – not that we hadn’t seen the ambulance at that house before during pandemic but it was the first time we had seen a fire truck pull up behind it with a group of about 5 volunteers gathered behind the ambulance as though they were meeting there for a social and were visiting with one another while waiting for the rest of their brood.  None of them were wearing masks nor were they social distancing. Jenna and I took our walk around the neighborhood after returning the package to the house.
            The package was marked from my middle son and his family.  We read this book after returning home.  
Four hours later we heard the mail truck again.  That’s when I questioned my sanity.  For the most part I do prefer being home – but these last six two and a half almost three years months have felt really long. It’s been worse for my sister, Kayla.  Even Corey, who is more introverted than I, seems worn out from it – but probably because his husband is extraverted.
            Tried adapting a routine.  It didn’t work.  Still have a puzzle left.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

A Dying Breed



          I remember seeing mailboxes in my neighborhood and at different corners when I was growing up.  I remember getting two Dr. Seuss books to give to my siblings.  I remember walking from our house to the nearest mailbox and counting the steps that I took and recording the number in the book. I don’t actually remember the number, but I know it was less than 100. Well, in one of them it was.  I don’t think I did them at the same time and so they may have had two different numbers.




          I have considered the mailbox an endangered species for some time.  Mailboxes started vanishing to very far and few between. 

I used a mailbox I passed between transfers when I rode the bus to one of my places of employment.  The last time I walked passed said location – the mailbox wasn’t there.  It was gone!  I didn’t know where the next nearest mailbox was – besides the post office.



Another thing that I found really odd was that sometimes next to the blue mailbox was what appeared to be a green mailbox.  They all had warnings that they were NOT to be used as mailboxes and warned individuals NOT to use it as a mailbox  - as though we could.  There were no slots.  The only way to get into it was with a key.  I didn’t understand what they were for.

Mailboxes used to stand out and populate as fire hydrants.  They were convenient.  Along came e-mail and texting and seem to have made mailboxes a dying breed.  A rarity.  And so have phone booths.  Those seem even rarer than mailboxes.




          Sometimes I will take pictures of Jenna posing with these rare objects.  For they may very well become extinct.



Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Corresponding with my Secret Friend



          Jenna is always asking if there is any mail for her.  I suppose most children go through the stage of wanting to receive a card or letter that has been sent especially to them.  It doesn’t happen too often.  And the disappointments seem to weigh in even more.

          Recently we were at a pool party hosted by my cousin.  Her daughter, Melody and Jenna are five months apart.  We had arrived at the party late and both Jenna and Melody were going through withdrawal for each other’s company.  Before we pulled Jenna away so that we could return to our house, Jenna and Melody promised that they would write to one another – though we only live about 20 minutes away from one another.  Postage is definitely less than the cost of gas.  Not to mention the commute itself (construction and heat account for far more than 20 minutes) and our current car situation.


          Jenna’s has written three letters thus far (one for each day since the party) and I have mailed two of them.  She has been disappointed that she has not received anything yet.  I tried to explain that even if Melody had written that very night and her mom actually mailed it (which actually is quite doubtful) that it still wasn’t enough time to deliver a letter – unless she should get one today.  I’ll make sure she gets one – though it won’t be from Melody.

          I actually put a letter out in the mailbox last night – figuring Jenna would find it this morning when she took Melody’s letter out.  I did not sign Melody’s name however.  I signed it “from your secret friend”.  Jenna is certain that it came from Melody.  The letter she wrote out this morning was addressed to “?”.  It is currently in a drawer ready to be mailed tomorrow.  Well, partially ready anyway.  I haven’t put it in an envelope.  I told Jenna to look for some postcards that she has.  I have postcard stamps.  I ran out of the other.

          She decided that she would send letters to another friend who lives in the neighborhood.  She has decided to sign her letters “your secret friend”.  Who knows, maybe we will get a chain reaction from this letter thing.  It does feel good to have her so excited about the “secret” correspondence.

          When I was younger I sent letters to other countries.  I wrote to a girl in Guyana and to one in Germany.  Perhaps I ought to find her a pen pal that will assist in helping her to learn Spanish – or having a desire to further her Spanish fluency.  I will have to find some addresses – I’d prefer keeping her in the country though as postage outside of US is close to or over a dollar.  Maybe if we send enough out, we’ll find someone who is just as excited to do it as Jenna.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

You're A Grand Old Flag




In honor of flag day, I thought I would share just a couple of amusing stories:


Patriotic Show Up


My mom and sister had gone out of town over the Independence Day Holiday the first year that Roland and I were married.  My mom had meant to put the flag out before they had gone out of town.  She called me (from wherever) and asked if I would do it and she would take it down when she returned.

Roland and I had gone to her house and I went downstairs where the flag was kept – the only flag I knew about.  My grandfather had had a military funeral approximately 30 years before.  Mom took home the flag that had been draped over his casket.  It was actually a lot bigger than I had remembered.  Mom must have been talking about another flag.

I took the huge flag upstairs and told Roland that I had no clue how to hang it.  Roland is a solution finder.  He came up with a brilliant idea for hanging it in the front window.  As I recall we attached the flag over the curtain rod so that it would hang behind the drapes and would visible to the outside world. 
As we pulled out of the driveway we couldn’t help see the front window filled entirely with the enormous flag.  Nor could my mom and sister upon their return.  Nor anyone who passed the house.  It couldn’t help but be noticed.



Mom called me shortly after they pulled into the driveway.  “Why did you use such a big flag?”

“Is there another?”

“Well, yes.  I didn’t mean for you to fill the entire window.  My neighbors probably think I’m trying to show them up.”

I didn’t know she had a normal sized flag in her basement.  It was even included on its own pole.



Amelia Bedelia strikes again

          I had a piece of mail to put out in the mailbox so that it would be picked up by our mail carrier.    Jenna anxiously jumped at the opportunity of putting the letter (or bill or whatever) out to the mailbox herself. 

Now our post office does not seem all that close and so our mail carrier will stop at the mailboxes that have mail to go out provided that the flag is up to tell the carrier that there is something which needs to go out.  And so I told Jenna to be sure and put the flag up.

Sometimes the flag will stick as though it’s welded to the side of the mailbox.  It hadn’t occurred to me that Jenna might not know what it was for – or that the red handled part was called a flag.  I headed out the door so that I could assist in her struggles – only she was having struggles with something else.



She was indeed trying to put the flag up – but not from the mailbox.  She was dragging the flag pole across the driveway and looked up at me and said, “It’s just too heavy mom.”

I tried to hide the laughter from beneath my smile.