Please Mr. Postman

President’s Day Weekend has always been a special weekend for my family. Growing up, we would leave school right after the classroom Valentine’s Day party and drive to Yosemite National Park for a long weekend with my Dad’s side of the family. I remember piling into the mini-van with my bag, or “mailbox,” full of Valentine’s and candy from my classmates as we drove into that snowy wonderland in the shadows of Half Dome.

As per tradition, my family is there this weekend, making this one of those times when homesickness settles in. When that happens, of course, even the little things here irk me to no end. Hence, my latest rant: the postal service.

On Friday, I received a Valentine’s package from my uber generous mother. She went to all the trouble of selecting special treats to send, wrapping them in two plastic bags, and shelling out a fortune to ship here. And yet, the postal service here decided that all her efforts were for their enjoyment.

This is a common practice, of course, so I’m not fully surprised. Every box I’ve received has had an end sliced open and any loose items (mainly candy) have been slyly shaken free of their boxed internment. The state of my package on Friday, however, was utterly ridiculous: The entire box had been ripped open and tied back together again with rope; all the items had been removed from my Momma’s packaging; and the remnants of the “samples” taken would have gone unnoticed, except for the fact that they left the spoils in with the rest of the items.

And, here is where my homesickness pushed me over the edge. Out of two bags of Valentine M&Ms, the kind post office left me a quarter of one very torn bag and another open bag held a majority of the heavenly chocolate-disks-covered-by-a-thin-candy-shell remaining…But, seriously, would you partake when you had no idea what had touched your food?…In exasperation, I asked my flat-mates “why bother?! Why leave anything behind?!” Why not just take the entire bag, so that the possibility of getting to indulge in chocolate could have slipped past my attention, unnoticed? Instead, I had to dump the remains of my soiled taste of home. Grrr…

Ha, it’s really one of those “you-just-have-to-laugh” moments; a truly petty thing for me to be upset about (well, minus all the trouble my poor Momma went through to send me some lovin’)…unfortunately it caught me in a bad space.

So, Mr. Postman (and your cronies)-next time you “examine” my mail: please, just go ahead and keep whatever you decide needs further inspection. It’s all yours. Truly. No need to suddenly feel guilty and leave me the remnants. I won’t mind…honest.