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.