I hope to make this a regular habit during the ensuing weeks free of my daily routine: awaking to the tweets of the various endothermic vertebrates that flutter about outside and sit on the utility lines that reach out to every household across from the park. It’s quiet save for a car starting every now and zen in this early part of the morn, carrying its owner off to a long day of labor.
I thought I would sleep in on this first day after the 13-hours of back-to-back final exam reviews, creative evaluation of a few projects in front of the 4 different classes still filled with those who began back in January with one final inspirational speech to send my students off to summer break. I should be horizontal right now. Why does my brain ticker on? Yes, I have a lengthy meeting later today, but I planned this particular morning for a requisite slumber. Ah! I remember! I returned home last night and collapsed on my bed moments after my arrival after those 13-hours with no break whatsoever that I usually take to pull my wits together.
Here, I sit on my couch with a steaming cup of java and a brain feeling lobotomized, even after a brisk 6:15a walk about the neighborhood. More bright diffused light begins to creep in from the east trying to burn through the delicate foggy mist and tall trees. I turn to a pile of mail that seems to arrive in a heap only once a week now with many days of no mail at all and I wonder if our USPS delivery person simply doesn’t show up on the other days. Last night I noticed that for the past several months my mail arrives in a cluster. On Monday, when I discovered that I still had not received a replacement card for the second time, I had to call the bank (again) to inquire why it was taking so long. I was originally told it would arrive in 4 – 6 business days. The faraway voice (in another country) in the call from my spaceship told me that it was mailed on May 4th. This was May 16th. Again, they canceled that one and promised to use Federal Express to deliver the next within 2 business days. While I totally appreciate some our American institutions like the United States Postal Service, I wonder for how long they can keep going like this.
The clump of paper that I pulled from the spaghetti tin-sized mailbox (typical of apartment buildings) yesterday contained the usual lot of paper coupons, 20% off mailers for Bed-Bath-and Return, and a host of other shout-outs to:
“Visit us immediately to take this deep discount in our generous offer of the thing we rip you off for when you don’t have this coupon.”
The everlasting gobstopper of living with capitalism: the drop offs to my postbox that attempt to persuade me with life’s insipid vagaries.
Thank you Wikipedia: According to Roald Dahl‘s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the fictional Everlasting Gobstopper is:
a candy that not only changes colors and flavors, but can never be finished, and never even gets smaller.
Yes, that’s YOU: Discover, Verizon Xfinity, Chase, American Express, AT&T Uverse, and the dozens more mailings that bury the American mind.
