The thing that worked while returning the thing that didn’t work. Plus the pet rock.
Monday January 04th 2016, 11:49 pm
Filed under: Family,Life

Lesson learned: never, never go to the post office on the first business day after New Year’s. I hope the guy behind me in the 20-minute line (with zero sense of personal space) didn’t catch my cold and I sure hope I didn’t catch his.

One woman, turning away at last from the understaffed counter, looked for a sympathetic face in the crowd and exclaimed to me, “Twenty-five minutes in line!”

(I was nearly up, clearly I was getting off easy, myself.) More fun than worrying about the loud guy on the phone with the loud cough was getting a chance to answer her. Pointing at one of the boxes I was dealing with, I said that my five-year-old grandson had left his most favorite rock, his pet rock, at Gramma’s. It had sparkly bits. I had it wrapped up as pretty as I could in lots of colors and it was going home too now.

She loved it! It was exactly the relief she’d been looking for when she’d said that. Made her day, which made mine.

I didn’t say that it was Parker’s gold-panning souvenir, that he’d been told he could take one (just one!) home, although that does definitely make a good Californian story. But we were there when he got it, and I was here to get it back to him.


4 Comments so far
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I chuckled at the very first line! You only learned that lesson NOW?
Parker’s rock reminds me of a pair of retired geologists I visited just before they sold their house. They had a large circle of rocks in their backyard which had a rock from every place they’d visited. A lifetime of memories. (Not sure which was their favorite.)

Comment by LynnM 01.05.16 @ 12:16 am

Glad that he’ll get that back! And ha! The post office…always an adventure. Good on you for sharing smiles and joy there!

Comment by Pam 01.05.16 @ 4:33 am

I know the importance of having that rock! Leo lost it when he couldn’t find his Boulder!

Comment by Jody 01.05.16 @ 7:03 am

I can’t tell you how much I love that you mailed his rock back to him! My daughter left her Beanie Baby butterfly in Arizona years ago and it didn’t get mailed home — but my mom took pictures of Flutter at Tombstone and and everyplace else they visited that year. I can’t remember any but the purple butterfly posing on a tombstone at Boot Hill. 🙂

Comment by Michelle Marr 01.05.16 @ 1:51 pm



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