Getting the mail

I remember when getting the mail was a matter of going to the front door and grabbing whatever was in the box on the wall just outside the door.  Other times it was on the floor in front of the door, if there was a mail slot.  But all that was years ago, in a different life.   From the time I left San Francisco in 1979, mail has been as close as across the yard, in a box on a post, to a few miles away at the post office. 

When I left the city behind I also left behind (in many ways) the “delivered right to your door” that city people take for granted.  We have to know whether a package will be shipped through the US Mail, or a parcel service before we provide an address.  The post office will only deliver to our PO Box; the parcel services will deliver only to our door.  At the beginning, before we learned the key words to use, it caused a lot of problems.  We didn’t get the payment coupon book for our mortgage because the office people with the mortgage company didn’t “get” that we don’t get mail at our house.  When it seemed like it had been too long I called and they told me it had been returned as undeliverable.  They admitted they had sent it to the street address.  I explained, again, that we only get mail at the PO Box, and they got it updated.  Had I not called, we could have lost the house before it was even ours.  Again and again I have to tell businesses that we do not get mail at the street address.  For the most part the person I’m talking to doesn’t really understand. 

Why am I talking about this?  Because on our very indirect drive home from the post office today, we enjoyed Pasque flowers at their peak (in the place they bloom early) and saw a marmot, as well as a cow and yearling moose pair up a different road.  How boring it would be to get our mail at our door.  That short mile and a half (more if we wander) has so many possibilities for exciting things to see.