For the majority of our time here, we’ve had only a couple of mail carriers. First was the guy that even in retirement, everyone seems to call ‘The Mailman’. I see him at the store sometimes, hobbling along supported by his shopping cart, Buffalo Bills hat squarely on his head, doing his business. Since he retired, we’ve had Bonnie, whom we weren’t aware of her name until within the past year, because during the holiday we left a local grocery store gift card for her to have, to thank her for her service, and she left a very nice post card with her name signed to it. Thereafter, I see her occasionally when I’m off work and she’s delivering, she’s a Boston Red Sox fan like I am. I only know that because I have a Red Sox welcome mat at the front door, and she commented about it one day.
I guess in a way we sometimes take the people that serve us for granted, because all of a sudden a couple of months ago; Bonnie disappeared. Not literally, we’re not talking the work of Thanos here. Just that for a few days we had a different mail carrier. Then another one. And another. Bonnie apparently had either been replaced or retired, or something else had happened, but we didn’t see her anymore. My wife called the Post Office and inquired but was informed they didn’t give out that sort of information. Which these days makes sense. We’re concerned, but it’s just a change in our routine. Nothing catastrophic, just a change in personnel. We figured that was pretty much the end of it, as for the following months the responsibility for our route seemed to fall on a chosen few people, but they all seemed to be on rotation. No one person seemed to be doing our route.
Until a couple of weeks ago. My wife informed me that Bonnie had returned. She was looking at the camera that’s trained on our front door, and lo and behold, Bonnie delivered the mail. And then again the next day. And so on. She was back on the job after all. I just happened to be outside talking to the guys replacing our sidewalk when she happened to drive up in her mail truck last week. And we had a small interaction while she was doing her work. She said she’d ‘had a little work done’, and I stated it was good to have her back because she was missed. Which got me a patented Bonnie smile.
Bonnie’s back. All is right with the world.