by Valerie Nusbaum
Randy has a nemesis. It’s the mailman. Oh, I know the correct term is “letter carrier,” but my hubby refers to the person who delivers our mail as “the mailman” when he isn’t referring to him as “@#*$%.” I don’t know our current letter carrier, and I can’t say for sure if it’s a man or a woman because I haven’t seen or met him/her. Our former letter carrier, Steve Geer, is a very nice man, but he retired a while back.
Our current letter carrier is likely a very nice person as well, but Randy swears that “the mailman” is playing games with him. You see, Randy’s job is to fetch the mail from the mailbox every day. He enjoys it, I think. I don’t mind doing it, and sometimes I do, but whenever I do walk down to our mailbox, our neighbor Steve Fulmer tells me that I’m going to get in trouble for taking away Randy’s job.
Mail delivery usually happens around 4:00 p.m. on our street, and Randy gets home from work around 4:30 p.m., so he picks up the mail on his way into the house. Oftentimes, though, the mailbox is empty when Randy goes to it. He comes in the front door and announces, “No mail,” and then we hear the mail truck rounding the corner. This has happened enough times that Randy is quite sure the mailman is hiding somewhere and watching for Randy to make his journey to the mailbox and come back empty-handed. Randy stands at our front window and hurls insults as the truck passes our house, and I swear that a time or two I’ve heard laughter coming from outside.
Now, our letter carrier absolutely can’t be blamed for this…but one day not too long ago, Randy went after the mail and came back looking shell-shocked. He said to me, “I’ve really seen it all now,” and he held up the day’s mail. Someone had sent us a banana. Seriously. It was a real banana with a postage sticker and a mailing label attached. No return address. Who knew that fruit could be mailed that way? The banana wasn’t in a box or an envelope, and I must say it was in pretty sad shape by the time we got it. We don’t know who sent it or what the significance is, but I’m sure that someone had a lot of fun dreaming it up. It cost $3.75 to ship a 25¢ banana. I made Randy peel it just to make sure that the sender hadn’t put something inside, but we didn’t find anything. The banana was postmarked “Frederick.”
About two weeks later, we came home and found a cardboard box on our porch. Again, the package was sent through the mail, and again, I don’t blame our mailman for it. In fact, he or she had to get out of the truck to put the package on the porch, and I believe it was raining that day. We took the box inside and, after making sure it wasn’t ticking, we opened it. Our surname was misspelled and the package was sent from Middletown. Inside the box, we found a roll of toilet tissue wrapped in bubble wrap. Written on the tissue were the words “I hear you like pi,” and when Randy began unrolling the roll (because at this point, why wouldn’t you?), we found a large portion of the pi sequence written on the paper at intervals, such as 3. 1 4, etc. Was this connected to the banana? My guess is that the same person or persons sent both. How does pi relate to a banana? I have no idea. I figure that there’s no connection, but the sender(s) got really tickled thinking about us trying to puzzle it out. Maybe we’ll receive a banana crème pie next. I really don’t know.
A while back, I told you about the beautiful flower pot that showed up on our porch. Well, around the same time as the pi/banana incidents, a cute metal turtle flower pick showed up in the flower pot. A week or two after that, we came home and found a sweet little frog riding a snail in our flowerbed. What lovely surprises those were, and they had nothing at all to do with our mail. Randy and I both want to send our warmest thanks to our mystery friend(s) for these thoughtful gifts. You’ve brightened our days and our home.
We haven’t received any new puzzling items in the mail, and those are mysteries we may never solve. I’m sure the person(s) behind all of these things have had nearly as much fun with it as we have. I’m also sure that one day in the not too distant future, Randy will be lying in wait for our letter carrier, and I want to be there with a camera. It’s not so much that I want to record the moment of their meeting for posterity; it’s more that I may be able to use the photos and video in court at Randy’s trial.
