Going Postal

We are, at long last, going to have our bathroom redone.  

This will be cause for great celebration, just as soon as the work is finished, because I have been wanting to redo the bathroom for years.  I won't celebrate until the work is finished, however, because I'm pretty sure the dogs are going to be absolute nightmares for the entire process. After all, there will be strangers in the house and any time strangers are in the house--particularly when Opie is NOT in the house--the dogs are convinced that the strangers are actually paid assassins planning to kill us all.

So, the work is supposed to start today and I thought the drama wouldn't start until the workmen actually arrived.

I was wrong.

See, the mailman just rang the doorbell, which usually means we have a package that he's going to leave in the door, he just doesn't want us to miss it. However today after ringing the bell, he waited on the porch so I had to go out and talk to him.

The dogs were pretty sure this was part of the mailman's ongoing nefarious scheme to murder us when we least expect it. And, ever vigilant heroes that they are, they kept up a hysterical cacophony of barking and snarling and flinging themselves against the door.

It is interesting to note that screaming "Shut up! Shut up or I will kill you!" Did nothing to deter the two crazed beasts from their rescue mission.

But I digress...the package, that's what I was going to talk about.

The mailman had a package that was presumably for us because it had our address on it. However it didn't have our names on it and it didn't have a return address. Plus there's like a bunch of postage due, which I have to pay without even knowing what's in the package.

The box in question

"It's weird," The mailman said. "And you don't have to accept it. But it might just be an honest mistake."

"Does this happen often?" I asked.

And he said no, that it's pretty rare.

"We're not really expecting a package," I said. "Unless my husband got some sort of early surprise for Valentine's Day."

But, honestly, I thought that was unlikely since A. Opie usually has packages for me delivered to himself at work. And B if it was for me I assume he'd at least put my name on it.

Anyway, this is when the mailman said "If there's something illegal in there and you didn't order it--"

"I assure you," I interrupted him. "If there's something illegal in there, we didn't order it."

"You'd be surprised how many people send drugs through the mail," he said.

"You'd be surprised how often we NEVER do that," I told him.

But he went through this whole spiel about how I'd have to contact a postal inspector and they'd come out, and not to throw the box away and on and on and on....

Then, because I have the unique ability to immediately imagine the worst possible scenario, I interrupted him to ask "What if it's a bomb?"

"I don't think it's heavy enough to be a bomb," he said, doing that thing where you keep shaking the package up-and-down to sort of determine how heavy it is.

Which, considering we were talking about a potential EXPLOSIVE seemed a little risky.

"How heavy is a bomb?" I asked.

And he admitted he has no idea but did I really know anyone who would send me a bomb?

"I think the whole point of sending a bomb is that the person who is going to get it doesn't think they're going to get one or nobody would ever open their mail." I argued.

He agreed and I think it's safe to say the mailman either thinks I'm crazy or he's my new best friend.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that the dogs were pretty convinced it was a bomb (and that the mailman was probably the one who had sent it!), I paid the postage, brought it in the house, and opened it verrrrryyyy carefully.

And do you know what it was?

Two bags of delicious, rain forest-certified coffee that my friend Eric got us for a Christmas gift. (Yes, I know it's February 8th and Christmas was a while ago but I do not fault him for this -- Eric and I have similar struggles getting to the post office in a reasonable amount of time for holidays...some of you may remember when I tried to ship his kids their Christmas gifts in a wine box. At the end of January.).

Totally worth the drama!

So, anyway, yes the outcome was a little anticlimactic, but the point is, now the dogs are extra hyped up and on red alert, Toby the handyman is due any minute which will not calm them down, and I am considering drinking heavily and and prank calling Eric the rest of the day.