Memory Monday: Waiting for the mail

Jess and I have started getting response cards for the wedding, and I can't remember the last time I was so excited about the mail. Around noon, I start to get itchy with an itch that only a full mailbox can scratch, but I know that it's still too early. Our mail usually gets here around 2 or so...so I wait. And I wait. And the feeling that there are ants in my pants grows to an unmanageable level. Sometimes, to cope, I listen really hard to see if I can hear the mailman come up our steps. The apartment must be totally silent to allow for accurate listening, and between 1 and 3, most talking ceases. Loud breathers are kicked out (Sparki, I'm talking about your snoring, buddy). Finally, at 2, I take the doggies out and get the mail. Unable to wait until I take them back inside, I start opening response cards as the dogs do their business. Some have come very close to being dropped in poo, and I'm ok with that. Once we return inside, I enter everything into a sick Excel spreadsheet (complete with the percentage of response cards received, total count probabilities, actual counts, and intense formulas) and the process begins all over again.

The last time I was so excited about the mail was probably a few years ago, when I applied to a job that refused to call me or email me to let me know if I got the position. Instead, they snail mailed my forms and congratulations letter and such. The time before that, it was probably getting into grad schools, and the time before that was when I was waiting to hear from colleges. If you want to go way back, the first time I was excited about getting the mail was...well, when I started getting mail! My parents always had magazines and letters and junk mail and bills and newspapers...when I got the mail (one of my chores), I would sift through and hope that something - even one piece of junk mail - was for me. When my best friend started writing me from a summer camp that she attended one year, I was extremely excited. There was driveway dancing involved.

Snail mail is still the most exciting for me out of email, snail mail, and phone calls. I suppose because it's tangible, and also because it's not as common as a phone call or email. It's even exciting when you order something online for yourself and then it comes in 10-14 days later. It's WAY more exciting than buying it at the store. Maybe that part of it is the delayed gratification - during the time you're waiting for your purchase to come in, you're getting more and more psyched about it.

Wow, maybe I should be a postal worker.

OH I can't wait anymore...I'm going to check the mail...again.