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Tuesday, August 5, 2008. Sometimes I do things so stoopid I can't believe it. I drove to the post office this am and picked up the mail. I check the mail like three times a month. Because of these long intervals  there's lots of legitimate mail mixed in with a lot of junk, necessitating a big plastic bag to put it all in.
I drove across the railroad tracks and parked under an old oak tree (this tree is in the middle of town, between the bank and the liquor store.) Under the oak's dappled shade I sat and listened to the radio and plowed through the sack of mail. I wrote checks for the first of month bills; (the house note and water bill;) put stamps and address labels on the envelopes.
I crumpled up junk mail without my name on it into a ball and drove around the corner and threw it into the convenience store trash can. Then I drove toward the post office in the next town to mail the bills and ask the postmaster there about some stamps I had ordered. But as I headed down highway 98, I saw some mallow plants blooming by a side road. I turned around and went back to see if I could pick some.
I drove up as close as I could. The mallow plants are a wild hibiscus with chartreuse petals and a magenta throat--they look just like okra flowers, but are smaller. They were growing with Queen Anne's lace and yellow daisies. I itched to pick a few to make a bouquet. I opened the car door--Oh Oh. Between me and them was a weedy snaky looking ditch. Regretfully, I left them.
I get to the 2nd post office and reached for the house and water bills. The water bill was missing. IÂ searched every piece of mail in the big bag three times. I got a flashlight and looked between the seats. I looked in my purse. I got out and looked under the seats back and front. I found a Popeye's fried chicken coupon and a Pizza Hut coupon, but no water bill. I went back to the side road--maybe the water bill had fallen out on the road somehow when I'd opened the door. Nope, wasn't there.
I drove back to convenience store. Maybe I had inadvertently crumpled the water bill up with the junk mail. I was searching through the trash can when my cousin Leroy walked by. "What are you doing in that trash can? Looking for a beer?" he joked. He helped me pull out beer bottles and cans and Skoal cups and other yukky stuff. Searched it all--no water bill.
Then I glanced between the car seats again, and there the envelope was, big as life. I swear to you, some poltergeist had taken it and put it back between searches. Leroy pulled it out for me and I got it mailed fast before it could disappear again. Now ain't that the stoopid-est thing you've heard in a while? Susil
