Off the agenda

So, after my office hours ended (and I finished a bit of grading I had to do), I drove home to check if there was an update on my yard. No notice taped to the mailbox (the standard MO), nothing on my door, no phone message.

So I used up one of my "emotional spoons" for the day and called down there. Asked the person (the "big boss" was not in; I asked for her first) if she knew the status of my yard.

She asked my address, and when I told her said, "You're clear, don't worry about it."

Ugh. What have I been doing for the past week? What this does mean is I just need to make sure to make time to mow my lawn weekly whether it looks like it needs it or not. Once the grass gets taller it gets harder to mow. (I could buy an electric mower but I feel kind of broke right now, and as long as I do keep up with it, the rotary mower does fine. Also unless I got one of the rechargables, it would be a pain, because I have no outdoor sockets - just one in the garage. What we really need is an affordable solar mower, maybe one that works on the "roomba" principle, where you put "boundaries" down and then turn the thing loose while you sit in the shade and drink an iced tea.)

On you lose some front:

I opened my mailbox to check for mail. There was....well, in the interest of keeping things PG, I'll say there was a gentleman's birth control device sitting in there. Not used, apparently, though I did not inspect it very closely. The wrapper was in there too.

I stood there a moment, completely and utterly gobsmacked: "What the....?" "Is that a.....?" and then when the right synapse fired, I went "OH GROSS."

Then I was horrified: what if my mail delivery person came by and saw it? And refused to leave my mail?

I rushed in the house and grabbed a large number of paper towels (Like I said, I think it was unused but didn't look that closely) and removed it and stuffed it in the trash.

And then thought: Someone needs to know about this, in case it happens again or in case I am being targeted. (I don't think I am, I can't think of anyone I might have ticked off or spurned romantically, at least not anyone who would think this was remotely a good idea). First thought of the cops but meh, this would be impossibly small potatoes to them. And anyway, the post office might need a record of it. So I called the local post office.

(An aside: it is increasingly hard, in today's stripped down yellow pages, to even find the governmental numbers. Yeah, I could have gone online but I'm just old enough to think "yellow pages" first and not Google when I need a phone number)

I'm glad I called them. The guy was reassuring and was appropriately horrified on my behalf. And then he said, "Don't worry about it too much; we've had other reports of this happening and apparently it's just people picking a mailbox at random to be an idiot about."

But seriously. Maybe I just need to be done with it and get a box down at the PO and remove my mailbox forever; this is the third mailbox since I've lived here (the first two were vandalized; one of them someone tried to blow up with firecrackers).

I know it's a small thing but to me it's a mark of an increasingly uncaring and uncivil society, when someone thinks it's a laugh to do that to a person.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being totally humorless about this and need to lighten up but I don't find it all that funny, I find it kind of gross and offensive.

Hm. I wonder if the local high school did their STD-prevention health class this week or last week. (I last opened my mail box Saturday afternoon). I could see high schoolers thinking that was a dandy prank with the "samples" they were given. (Except I think our local high school uses an abstinence-based curriculum). Could also be college kids; I think they have bowls of the things out in the nurse's office, take what you want, no questions asked, in the name of preventing the spread of disease and unexpected pregnancy. But still: putting them in people's mailboxes is not what they're there for.

I dunno. I'm ready for the weird stuff to stop. Some days I find myself stopping and going, "If I didn't know I was awake I'd swear I was dreaming this."