Freaking Mr. FedEx

I surprised the FedEx man today.

Not surprised, like hiding behind the girls' bathroom door and jumping out, screaming BOO at the next fourth-grader to enter, who just happened to by my revered teacher, Mrs. Burns. I was so mortified that time that I vowed never to jump out from behind a door shouting BOO again. A vow which remains unbroken to this day.

I mean surprised, as in starting down the long driveway as he was backing away from the house to come up the driveway. I pulled off in the three-acre front yard to allow Mr. FedEx the gravel all to himself. We do that here in the country. Drive in our yards. Because we might as well. Total strangers do it all the time. You only know when you see their tire tracks when you get home from work.

Mr. FedEx stopped his van beside me. We do that here in the country, too. Stop driving opposite directions to sit and talk out the window to each other.

"You know you left a note on the door to leave the package in the garage so the dogs won't eat it? I did that last time. I put the package in the garage just now. But I think there's another dog in there!" Mr. FedEx has mentioned before to Genius that he is a bit leery of dogs. Genius has assured him that our three are all bark. And that the bark is mainly reserved for 2:00 a.m., other barking dogs, and absolutely nothing. Rarely do they even bother to bark at strangers who approach our home.

"Oh, one might have run in. It's okay. I'm going in there now."

"I think it was a dog. All I saw was a pair of eyes."

"That might have been one of the four cats. Or a mouse! My husband gets mad when he pulls in the garage and a mouse runs up the wall. 'Why do we have four cats if they can't even kill one mouse?' he says."

"Ha! THAT'S funny! All those cats and still a mouse."

Mr. FedEx laughed on up the driveway to the gravel road. I laughed on down the driveway to the garage. I could picture the scenario. Unlike the packages left stacked neatly on top of the generator by the UPS lady, a friend to dogs everywhere, with her fistful of crunchy treats to toss will-nilly for the fleabags...packages left by Mr. FedEx are found on the floor right inside the garage door.

I can see him, Mr. FedEx, a tall, burly man, pressing his face against the glass, hands shielding the sides, trying to peep into that garage door. Standing on the sidewalk, turning the doorknob, peering into the dark interior. Light only coming from the two rows of thin windows embedded in the slide-up entry doors at the opposite end. The sudden wink of a pair of eyes. The EEK as Mr. FedEx tossed the package inside and slammed the door, legs pinwheeling, cartoon music clunking, as he tried to make a quick getaway.

Poor guy. He needs to carry some treats. Or get Gramma Mimma's muttony napkins out of his pockets, if he wants the animals on his route to ignore him.