Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Email



       This morning I was supposed to be paying attention, but I had chosen a seat facing the big picture window that looked out onto the parking lot.
I was in my Wednesday morning writing group at a local library. We had already had over an hour to write, and now were sharing what we had produced.

          Someone was reading aloud, and I was trying to stay focused on the thread of the piece while also noting any well-turned phrases or descriptive passages. 

          But a large pick-up truck had stopped outside and four large workmen appeared and headed into the library. Were they experiencing a simultaneous urge for literature? Was there some industrial-sized issue in the rest rooms?

          They re-emerged outside the window, this time joined by a gentleman with a clipboard who must have been from the library, judging by his coatless condition and the lanyard of keys around his neck. 


          Now I noticed that the truck was loaded with mailboxes, several of them dinged and faded. I was struck by a thought. About the only place we can find a phone booth nowadays is in a 1950s Superman comic. Were mailboxes next?

          Had we reached this point?  Was email finally ringing the death knell of snail mail?

          I began to picture a 1984 sort of scenario, a field filled with sad and lonely blue boxes, their bellies forever empty. 

 

          But no – after a fair amount of discussion and gestures, a shiny new mailbox was unloaded from the truck, riveted into the sidewalk, and the old model was nestled in with his brothers on the truck to be escorted to what I hope will be mailbox retirement village.

         

12 comments:

  1. They have removed these types of boxes in some areas after the bombing threats. For some reason they felt they were going to be placed where crazies put their bombs! Yes, things disappear. Those keys will be a thing of the past soon.

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  2. Or mailbox refurbishing village. Our library has two dark green mailboxes for book return, and more wonderful yet, several villages around have poison green mailboxes in the police station parking lot for the disposal of unwanted prescription drugs. Or drugs, period, no questions asked.

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    Replies
    1. I wonder if people ever mix them up. Could be a bit of a surprise at the library.

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  3. Well, I hope you wrote this down for you workshop.

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  4. A mailbox retirement village! Gosh, think of the story possibilities. Mailbox hide and seek. Mailbox revenge. Lost treasures.

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  5. I think the mail is doing better than it was now. Email could have been the end of it, but online retailing is saving it now. I'm glad. I like to get parcels and personal letters.

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  6. This was really fun to read. And I'm glad to find that yes, there IS a Mailbox Retirement Village. :-)

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  7. our small town post office has a spot in the center of the road with two mail boxes back to back, one for each direction of the road. One day, one of the boxes disappeared making it inconvenient for one side of the road to drop off their mail. they must have gotten a lot of complaints because after a while, a new mail box appeared with drop off slots on both sides.

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  8. Kind of scary that they could be used for bomb depositories.
    Gee I hope they don't disappear though. The only one in this tiny town is outside of the P.O. Half my family works for the post office. Need to keep them working.

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  9. I had never seen a blue postbox before. They are red here in the UK. Nice post.

    Greetings from London.

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  10. Phew...had me worried there.

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