He comes to your house six days a week, leaving you little paper offerings. Perhaps they are bills, occasionally there are checks, but most of the time it seems entire forests have given their lives to print coupons for a dollar off an espresso or to ask if you've seen the person on the other side of the drycleaner's ad. He knows where you live, and he knows things about you that no one else does.
He is your postman, er, post-woman. Or is it postperson?
I recently caught up with the person who delivers my mail, and we had a nice little chat. He said that the designation of mail carrier would do. Either that, or I could call him Dave. Dave, the mail carrier. I wanted to know what he knew about me from my mail.
"I know that you take People magazine'" he said, with a grin.
Yeah, OK, I confess to a predilection for knowing which megastar has found his or her 10th soulmate in as many months. While Dave's observation was fascinating, however, I wanted more.
"I know you used to live down by Green Lake, on Ashworth, right? And your sister lives just a couple of houses away from you," Dave said. Hmm. How did he know I used to live on Ashworth? I've lived here for 10 years and somewhere else for six years before that. He hasn't been my postal carrier that long.
My USPS mail carrier Dave then confessed that this wasn't the first time he'd been my mail carrier. Since this was news to me, I gave him my famous wide-eyed, please-tell-me-you're-not-a-mail-carrying-stalker look that I rarely get an opportunity to use.
He laughed at my look (not the reaction I was going for) and said he had just become the mail carrier for my parents' house about the time I'd moved out.
Whew. He had me worried there for a minute.
But wait. How did he know that was my parents' house? I'd changed my name (to protect the innocent, of course) since I'd lived there. Aha! I had him now - figuratively speaking, of course.
"So, how do you know that my name used to be something other than it is today?" I asked in my most Perry Mason-esque tone.
"What's with your voice?" he asked.
"Never mind that, just answer the question," I said.
He scratched his head and looked up toward the roof of his little mail van.
"I guess I know that because I've talked to your dad when he's been in the neighborhood before. He remembered me," Dave said.
I bought his answer. I had to; I'd exhausted my repertoire of voice impersonations and strange looks.
Then I fell back on a tried-and-true query for mail carriers.
"Ever been bit by a dog?" I asked.
"I've been nipped, but never really bit," David said.
Darn.
"So, what else do you know about me from the mail you deliver to me?" I asked.
Dave pursed his lips and stared out the front window of his mini-mail van while he pondered.
"You know, I can't think of any-thing in particular," he said, "but, of course, now I'm going to be paying more attention because you've asked."
I wondered if it was a good thing to have your mail carrier pay more attention to you?
"Do you notice when people get government checks? Unemployment checks?" I queried.
"Oh, yeah."
"What else do you know?" I pressed.
"I know you wrote a letter to a paper in Colorado," he grinned, as he passed me an envelope from the paper in Colorado.
"I write for that paper; I'm a columnist. That's my paycheck."
"Oh," he said, not impressed at all.
Not that I was attempting to impress him. Much. His unimpressed-ness (is that even a word?), however, would reach new depths if he actually saw the amount of that paycheck. But I digress.
Mail carrier Dave suggested that we meet for coffee if I wanted to know more about what he knew and more about a postal carrier's life.
Mm-hmm. First he knows where I lived 10 years ago AND he knows my maiden name. Now he wants to meet for a drink?
I decided to show him that paycheck so he could see I don't get paid enough to learn more details about a mail carrier's life. Not nearly.
Freelance columnist Pamela Troeppl Kinnaird lives in the Seattle area. Her column is published on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. She can be reached at PamelaTroeppl@attbi.com.
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