Like Sands Through the Hourglass, This is the Delivery of Our Mail

Ahhhh...Friday! That's one week of school under my belt. And since the week of school consisted of only two days, I had plenty of room under that belt for some frozen custard!

The Pony and I met my mom on her church parking lot, and proceeded to the not-very-good-but-at-least-nearby custard stand. For the record, The Pony had a chocolate sundae, Mom had a vanilla cone, and I had a Hawaiian Delight concrete made with chocolate custard. It was not so much of a delight. More of a surprise. Who puts strawberries in a Hawaiian concrete? I was expecting bananas and pineapple and coconut, but not the added strawberries. Quite curious, the license this treat-purveyor takes with my taste buds.

But this is not about my afternoon delight. This is about THE MAIL.

We usually get our mail between 11:00 and 1:00. I know that, because all summer when I drove to town each day for a beverage or some lottery tickets or to pick up a package at the dead-mouse-smelling post office, I would stop for the mail when I returned home. So when The Pony and I got behind a car stopped at a mailbox near the beginning of our county road this evening, I thought it was kids fooling around.

Let the record show that the time was 4:45 p.m. The car was a white, newer-model Jeep. Not a fancy Jeep like a Cherokee or anything of that sort. A regular Jeep with a hard top and a short wheelbase. It used to be called a Jeep CJ5, as opposed to the long wheelbase Jeep CJ7 that my dad had in baby blue with a wide dark-blue stripe and a black hardtop.

So...the white Jeep pulled over at a roadside mailbox with its flashers on. A blond girl yanked open the mailbox door and shoved in an envelope. She shoved the door shut, but it fell down. She left it, and the driver proceeded to the next mailbox. She was blond, too.

"Look, Pony. Those girls are putting stuff in mailboxes. At first I thought they were delivering the paper. But you can't put that in a mailbox. You have to have a little container by  itself for the paper. So they must be stuffing invitations or some political ads in the mailboxes along here. That's against the law."

"Huh." Said The Pony. All interested and such. I don't even think he turned his head to see that single white envelope the gal had put in the gaping mailbox.

We finally got around the Jeep. I looked in my rearview mirror. Yep. They even stopped at the old cow-lady's house. So much for the invitation theory. Must be political.

"We'll get our mail, and then sit on the gravel road by the creek until they come along. Then we will know for sure what they're putting in the mailboxes."

"Huh." Said The Pony. Not at all his bubbly after-school self, who only yesterday agreed with my every statement, in fact telling me, "I'm a-pickin' up what you're layin' down. As you people would say back in your era."

I pulled over near EmBee's mailbox row. The Pony hopped out and trotted over to peer into her gullet. He looked at me with not very much fondness at all. "No mail."

We turned onto the gravel and waited for that Jeep. In the down time, The Pony revealed that his phone was dead. At least that means he had been socializing by device, and was disappointed that he could no longer socialize by device until he got home to his charger.

The Jeep topped the hill and sped down to EmBee. One of the blond gals climbed out and fished around in the back seat for more envelopes. After they finally filled up all residents of mailbox row, the Jeep sped away again. The Pony trotted back to see what was inside EmBee.

IT WAS OUR REGULAR MAIL!

What in the Sam Hill is going on here? Why such a late delivery? And these blondies didn't even have a U.S. Mail magnetic sticker on their bumper.

I almost expect a delivery on Sunday by a cheerful whistling substitute.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postwomen from their appointed rounds. But look out for the sands of time.