More Traveling & Baseball

Recently I took another couple of trips in my never-ending quest to avoid working too much. While I haven't finished relating the details of many of my previous trips, I thought I'd better get started on these while they're still fresh in the memory banks. All this mental hoop-jumping is good exercise for the gray matter anyway.

There was a quick jaunt recently to San Diego with some comrades from work to go catch a baseball game. Myself, 3 buddies from work, and 2 wives all made our way down to PetCo Park, the current corporate branding for the baseball stadium home of the San Diego Padres. We went in 2 separate vehicles as one of the couples would be staying overnight, whereas the rest of us would be returning here to Las Vegas right after the game. The whole thing is about a 650 mile round-trip from my one buddy's house, and seeing as how he'd be doing the driving this time, we'll measure it from there.

3 of us in this vehicle work in the same aisle in the post office, so we get to talk for a couple hours each morning while we set up our routes before we go out to the street to deliver the mail. We spend as much time joking and laughing as we can, because what else is life about if not trying to enjoy it as much as possible? So this ride to San Diego would be no different, as we do our best to rip each other apart, all in the name of humor and a good time. We can be a very entertaining crew of idiots...

We had prepaid for parking as well as the game tickets, so we were in a lot directly adjacent to the ballpark, and the lot was attached to our destination by a uniquely designed pedestrian bridge over Harbor Drive. I appreciate interesting architecture, so I enjoy seemingly simple things like that. It also afforded a nice view of downtown San Diego, with the convention center, some hotels, train tracks, and PetCo Park all within close proximity.

This was not my first trip to PetCo Park, and it really is a very nice place to see a baseball game. In addition, it's a nice place to just hang around on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It's in a great area, with lots of attractions right around the park...including many of the magazine-cover cuties working at the Tilted Kilt Pub. We hung out there for a while waiting for game time, enjoying the good food...amongst other things...

Our seats were on the third base side, in the shade, which wasn't as important as it could have been, but I wasn't taking any chances when I ordered them some weeks before. We were about halfway up, and had an excellent view of the whole playing area, plus the Padres dugout on the first base side. It was an entertaining game, including a couple of home runs by the home team. One of my co-workers also made a new friend, as a very tired/drunk/hungover girl
sitting next to him kept passing out, and slowly slumping over onto him over the course of the game. It made for an additional entertainment factor...stuff like this always seems to happen to him, too.

The Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the game was secondary to the fun that we were all having. In addition to laughing and being silly and stupid, I was also once again struck by the lush greenness of a Major League Baseball playing surface. It never fails to be a site attractive to my eye, and with downtown San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter visible just over the outfield walls, the whole thing makes for a pretty picture.

We made a stop on the return trip at Portillo's, a Chicago-based chain of restaurants serving hot dogs, Italian beef, hamburgers, snadwiches, and other great items. So we sat, ate, laughed, picked up some beef for other friends/co-workers, and then completed the drive home. And then I flew out Tuesday morning to spend 3 days in San Francisco.

But that's a story for another day...

Blog Post Soundtrack; The White Stripes (live), Punjabi MC, Judas Priest, The Doors (live w/Eddie Vedder singing), Rollins Band, King Missile, Slayer, Yawning Man, Huevos Rancheros, Zeke, Galactic, Django Reinhardt, Orange 9MM, Megadeth, Clutch, Joy Division, The Minutemen, Blondie, Down, Primus, Cage The Elephant, Tygers Of Pan Tang, The Company Band, Mother Love Bone, Black Sabbath

Walter, Walter Everywhere

I've talked about this before, but there is a large Filipino contingent in my office. One gentleman in particular has a rather thick accent. A really funny guy, everyone in the office likes him, but it can take a few seconds sometimes to understand exactly what he is saying. For instance...

One morning, while casing mail in the office, a rare lull came over our aisle. This is apparently not such a rare occurence when I'm not there; not really sure what to make of that (insert knowing grin here). Regardless, in the midst of all this quiet, suddenly this man starts screaming quite loudly, "Water! Water!" We all stop dead in our tracks. There doesn't appear to be any panic in his behavior, other than the repeatedly loud screaming of "Water!"

In my mind, and I'm sure in the minds of my fellow carriers, (judging by the confused and perplexed looks on their faces) ran the following choices; 1) he ate something really hot and badly needs a drink of water, 2) he spilled some water and needs it cleaned up, 3) he spilled some coffee (which he's done before) and needs water to clean it up, 4) he has somehow injured or burned himself and needs water to soothe or cool the injury, or 5) he's finally reached the breaking point of working too damn long for the Post Office and repeatedly shouting "Water!" is the outward manifestation of it. There may have been other scenarios envisioned by my co-workers, but I didn't have enough time to come up with more than those.

As those options ran thru my mind, we all froze in our tracks wide-eyed and ignorant of what was actually going on, fearful that the slightest movement may detonate something somewhere (logic tends to be abandoned in situations like these). I happened to notice that he was staring past me as he was having his onset of Tourette's syndrome, so I slowly turned to follow his gaze, and instantly let out a "you've got to be kidding" sigh of relief, followed immediately by laughter, as I figured out what the hell all the shouting was about.

Turns out the Filipino gentleman had been preparing a route that was going to be split and carried by a number of different people. One of the people who was going to be carrying a piece of that route was at the other end of the aisle, and this man was desperatley trying to get the attention of WALTER.

I do seem to recall asking at one point, "Does he come with subtitles?"

How I Got Another Mom

Growing up in New York, I spent many an evening at a friend's house hanging out with his family and joining them for meals. It got to the point that I started to refer to my schoolmate's mother as "Mom", and it just kinda stuck. She wasn't the only adopted mom of mine in NY, but she was my favorite. (And yes, my real Mom is just fine; I just sort of collected adopted moms along the way thru life)

Eventually I moved out here to the Las Vegas area (just about 10 years ago as of this writing). I had been working in my new office for probably only a few weeks at the time, slowly getting to sort-of know some of the over 100 employees in the building. My previous office in NY had only about 15 routes in it, so there were maybe 2 dozen people there on any given day. Everybody knew everything about everybody, whether you wanted to or not. I was kinda glad to be going to a big office, with a large population of employees, where I hoped I’d just be an anonymous cog, blending in unnoticed…yeah, that didn’t last too long…

Some of my personality was showing on this particular day, as I came back to the office with my mini boom box blasting music. Never being sure of what route I was going to be on that day, I carried this thing around instead of a Walkman for my tapes (pre-iPod & iPhone days, kiddies), as I could leave it playing while driving and hopping in and out of the truck to deliver mail at boxes. Meant a lot of rechargeable batteries, but it was worth it. It’s almost impossible for me to not be hearing music or comedy on a constant basis. It quiets both the brain and the tinnitus.

As I unloaded my truck and made my way into the office with my stuff, my music maker was perched atop my empty trays. As the music emanated quite loudly, a female employee approached me. “Is that Louie, Louie?” she asked, half to be sure it was that song, because it was being covered by Motorhead, and half because…well, here’s why…

This woman, who I barely knew, and frankly, I can’t remember now if I even knew her name at this point, stopped right in front of me and, hands-on-hips, had asked me, “Is that Louie, Louie?” My response…”Yup.” She then asked, hands remaining on her hips, “How old are you?“ “28.“ Her response? To have her hands shoot up her sides from her hips to just under her armpits and shriek, “I HAVE CHILDREN OLDER THAN YOU!” I responded the only way I could think of…

“MOM!”

Big goofy grin on my face, arms outstretched, I’d found my adopted Mom in my new home. It stuck, as 10 years later, she’s still Mom. It stuck so much that our most senior citizen, the now 76 year old carrier (that I used to tell people on his route that he was dead) calls her Mom, even though he’s got her beat by something approaching 20 years. Although if you ask her, she’s only 38...


Blog Post Soundtrack; M.O.D., Tool, Brant Bjork (selections from his Saved By Magic album), Misfits (several tracks live in Boston in 1983, including a great Black Flag cover), Minutemen, Pearl Jam, White Stripes, Foo Fighters, Simon & Garfunkel, Soundgarden, Yawning Man, Parannoyd, and, of course, Motorhead covering Louie, Louie…

Increasing Mass

With an average of a couple hours spent in the office every morning, the topic of conversation amongst us letter carriers can get interesting. Usually a lot of good-natured tearing each other to pieces is part of it…gotta have some fun. On one particular day, we got around to discussing what you wanted to be when you grew up, because, let’s face it, none of us has ever said, “When I grow up, I wanna be a mailman!” Just doesn’t ever happen…

So we made the rounds, and fireman, policeman, pro ballplayer, and other things like that came up. One woman, who at the time of this story must have been around 50, said that when she was a little girl she wanted to grow up to be a cocktail waitress…which got just about the reaction from everyone that you would expect; “What?!?” Granted, we’re living in Las Vegas now, but none of us are from here, and she was raised in Colorado, not exactly the capital of cocktail-waitressing. So, after a bit of hubbub died down, she was given her chance to explain the motive behind her unfulfilled career choice.

Turns out, her father had been a waiter in various restaurants and hotels, so as a little girl, she used to see a lot of the restaurant business, and she must have admired it, and it seemed like something she wanted to do. Okay, with that explanation, it seemed plausible, although still a little unusual. This is a rather unusual woman though, so it kinda fit.

Finally I queried as to what happened as to divert her from her dream of being a waitress and into the glamorous world of mail carrying. Before she could answer, another carrier, a nice guy, very short and thin, not anyone you would expect anything lethal out of, chirped out;

“She gained weight!”

…and the silence that came over the room was chilling. Eyes widened, jaws slackened, hands were clasped over mouths, plants wilted, birds fell from the sky... The author of this quote quickly realized that he may have crossed over into a land from which no man returns alive. Fortunately for him, the victim of this gibe has a wonderful sense of humor, and is more than capable of laughing at herself, and, although the look of shock on her face was genuine, it was quickly replaced with a big smile and a laugh, which in turn was everyone else’s cue to start laughing as well…it WAS pretty damn funny.

When we attended the memorial service of the little mailman who authored that quote a week later, we remembered him fondly…


Blog Post Soundtrack; Voivod, Rollins Band, Nuclear Assault, Kyuss, Pearl Jam (doing a live cover of a Neil Young song), The White Stripes (doing a live cover of a Brendan Benson song), The Beastie Boys, James Brown, Zeke, The Misfits, Minutemen, Judas Priest, Slayer (covering a Judas Priest song), Soundgarden, System Of A Down, The Specials (sort-of covering a Rolling Stones song)

Suspicious White Powdery Substance

Working for the Post Office at the time of 9/11 was an interesting experience. As part of my morning wake-up routine, when the alarm goes off, I shut it off, grab the remote, and turn on the TV. Flipping thru the channels and seeing nothing but crap and garbage on channel after channel usually annoys me enough to wake me up fully and get me out of bed. For whatever reason, on that particular morning I never once turned on the TV. Bizarre but true. I had no knowledge of anything amiss until I got to work and heard everyone else talking about it. I spent the next few days on the phone back to New York trying to locate everyone and make sure they were OK. I’m pretty sure had I turned on the TV that morning and seen what was going on I never would have gone to work.

The next few days were very unusual. Las Vegas has one of the busiest airports in the world. With no tall buildings outside of The Strip, it’s possible to see for miles in any direction. Consequently, any look to the east usually shows 4 or 5 planes making there way here with many potential bankruptcy filers. However, in the aftermath of 9/11, with all air traffic grounded, the skies were eerily empty and quiet. It was very odd and disturbing to be delivering routes with neither sight nor sound of a jet.

Fast forward a little bit, and we suddenly had the anthrax scare going around. Coming right on the heels of the World Trade Center attacks, everyone had instantly become uber-paranoid about everything, so now we were all going to die from anthrax poisoning. We had a safety talk in my office about anthrax one day, so I came in the following day wearing a t-shirt from the thrash metal band Anthrax along with a tape of one of their albums for my Walkman (yes, this was that long ago). I told one of my supervisors I had some Anthrax as I showed him the cassette…yes, I showed it to a supervisor who I knew would appreciate the joke…

Well, the paranoia hadn’t quite been quelled yet. The main processing plant for the Post Office in Southern Nevada is right next to McCarran Airport. A huge facility with dozens, probably hundreds, of employees on any given day. On this particular given day, the entire plant had to be evacuated and everyone had to mill about in the parking lot for a couple of hours twiddling their thumbs due to the discovery of a suspicious white powdery substance. This meant that no mail for the entire valley could be processed or sorted, no trucks could be loaded or unloaded, and that a giant metaphorical monkey wrench had been thrown into the works of the Post Office. A HazMat team was called in, and eventually came to the stunning conclusion…

…that the suspicious white powdery substance…

…that had been discovered…

…IN THE BREAK ROOM…

…was Coffee-Mate.

Ladies and gentleman, I’m sure all of you were given a brain. Please try using it.


Blog Post Soundtrack; Morphine, The Hives, Van Halen, Fu Manchu, Blur, Mudhoney, AC/DC, Bad Radio, A Perfect Circle, John Lee Hooker, System Of A Down, Prong, Pearl Jam, Desert Sessions, Rollins Band, Henny Youngman, Queens Of The Stone Age, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nick Oliveri, Pink Floyd

Nostalgia

People are always kidding me about being from New York City. The attitude, the accent (whaddya youse f*%kin’ talkin about?), the reputation for crime, the reputation for not being as clean, etc. My office is filled with people who are from everywhere else. Hardly anyone in Las Vegas over the age of 30 was actually born in Las Vegas. Since we’re all trapped in the office for a couple hours each morning, the conversation invariably turns to making fun of each other over whatever subject matter is handy. Place of origin is usually a good place to start, seeing as how we’re all from someplace different.

One time early in my tenure out here in Henderson, the toilets in the men’s room overflowed. A friend in the office, originally from western Canada (told you we were from all over), sent me in there, as he was aware of this calamity before I was. The stench, as you can imagine, was…interesting. When I came out all teary and misty-eyed, my friends, laughing, asked me if the odor was too much for me. “No”, I told them, fighting back the tears, “It just made me homesick!”


Blog Post Soundtrack; P. J. Harvey, Leadbelly, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Mars Volta

I Told You Never To Call Me Here

When I first transferred out to Henderson, NV, 10 years ago now (!), this was the fastest growing city in the United States. Not that Las Vegas had run out of room, but there was definitely more undeveloped area in Henderson that was very quickly BECOMING developed. Builders couldn’t put up houses fast enough. Everything was sold for months before it had even had a foundation poured. And if you had an existing home for sale, most of the time you couldn’t plant the “For Sale” sign in the ground, because it was already sold before you ever got that far. New streets were being opened every day, and the mapmakers were in a tizzy with the incredibly rapid change in the topography.

This made for interesting times as a mailman. You had no idea how long a route would take you, because each day you came to work, another dozen or so deliveries were suddenly on your route, because a new section had been finished, and people were already moving in. Often, mail would start showing up to addresses that didn’t even exist yet, but sooner or later would. Since every day was a journey of address discovery, it was difficult to gauge how late you’d be working. With this being a desert and all, and it tending to go over 110 degrees on a regular basis for most of June, July and August, many people weren’t interested in working beyond 8 hours in a day, and so opted not to be on the overtime desired list in the summer months.

As a new transfer, you go to the bottom of the seniority list, as far as within that office. You keep your Post Office time, you’re just at the bottom of the barrel where you are now. Consequently, you don’t have a choice as far as wanting to work OT or not. So there were a dozen or so people at any given time who were Part Time Flexible (PTF) employees whose hours were pretty much limited by Federal laws that say you can’t work over 60 hours in a week. Very often, I’d be carrying until 6PM after starting at 7AM, then coming back to the office and doing some clean-up work on mail that needed to be forwarded, returned as attempted unknown, insufficient address, etc.

The office I work out of is huge, as it currently houses nearly 100 different routes in it. When it was late at night in the office, and there were maybe 8 PTF’s and a supervisor left in the building , you could easily hear the doors open signaling the return of another weary carrier. Especially on this one night…

Having only been there a few months at the time, I was working late one night when the doors burst open and in came a carrier screaming at the top of his lungs. Many of the carriers in my office are of Filipino descent. This one in particular had a very thick accent. I, along with anyone else remaining in the office, looked up to see what was going on. The man continued walking into the office, and he was yelling into his phone, “I told you NEVER to call me here, Goddammit! You fu@$%ng bitch, I going to KILL you! You stupid woman…”

We collectively stopped breathing, let alone working. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, we all sat there stunned as the raving and ranting continued for a few more seconds. He walked further into the office, continuing to yell into his phone, until…

…his phone RANG…

…because he hadn’t actually been ON it…

…and before anyone could even figure out what had happened, let alone have time to say anything, in mid-stride he instantly slipped into a lovey-dovey voice, complete with thick Filipino accent, and sweetly said “Hi Honeeeeeyyy…”

As soon as we realized we’d all been reeled in like a bunch of fish in Lake Mead, our respect level for him went thru the roof.



Blog Post Soundtrack; Soulfly, The White Stripes, The Doors, Minutemen, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Corrosion Of Conformity, Fear Factory, Tricky, Little Richard, Booker T. & The Mg’s, Bjork, Nick Oliveri, Foo Fighters, Metallica vs. Britney Spears, Dead Milkmen, Beastie Boys, Fugazi

I'm The Easter Bunny

As a mailman, I have to wear a uniform every day. Not exactly the height of fashion, but it seems to serve it's purpose as far as letting people know just who I am and what I do. Well, most people...

I was delivering a part of town that I hadn't been to in at least 5 years. I was carrying part of someone else's route in addition to my own route this particular day. It was a residential area, so it has one of those cluster boxes for every 10 or so houses. I pulled up to the box driving my rather conspicuously marked postal vehicle, and got out wearing my rather blatantly marked uniform. I then proceeded to spend 4 or 5 minutes delivering mail at the box. Seems dull and drab so far, right?

The entire time this was going on, right across the street sat an older woman. Her garage door was open, it was a nice sunny day, and I just figured she was watching the world go by and enjoying life. As I finished locking up the box and walking around the truck to get back in and drive off to the next one, she walked halfway down her drive and got my attention. She looked at me, and in all seriousness, asked, "Are you the mailman?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. I can be a little forgetful at times, so, just to be sure, I looked down and, lo and behold, I had indeed remembered to put my uniform on that day...both shirt AND pants...so as I looked back up at her, with numerous responses running thru my head, I went with what seemed the safest (i.e., least offensive), which was, "I sure hope so!" There was a bit of a hesitation on her part, which I took as my cue to get in the truck and drive off to the next box. I figured if that was how the conversation began, it wasn't going to get any better...

One of the things I DIDN'T say to her was, "No lady, I'm the fu%@#n' Easter Bunny!"


Blog Post Soundtrack; Cheech & Chong, Pearl Jam, Zeke, Bow Wow Wow, Iron Maiden

Smiley Sam, Ross Noble, And Twitter

I find myself taking full advantage of Twitter as a place to put down all those wacky random thoughts I have as the day goes on. Some of them have had many occasions to be repeated over the years, and I'm finally having a place to put them. Having an iPhone with me at all times makes it easier to save these little "gems", and I use that word wrongly, for posterity. No longer will these nuggets of insanity be blurted out and instantly lost in the ether, now they can be saved so historians can analyze them to see just how insane I really was. Por ejemplo, one of my favorites over the years has been, "Why do they call it common sense when it's so UNcommon?" Working for the Post Office, I usually have several occasions on a daily basis to utter this, either aloud or internally. Now, thru the magic of the iPhone and Twitter, I just posted it the other day. Wasn't long after that an artist whose work I've enjoyed over the years, Jill Thompson, retweeted my post, as she must have found it amusing. Always nice to have that sort of validation from someone whose talents you admire. Seeing as how she has illustrated works from the likes of Neil Gaiman (Sandman) and Grant Morrison (The Invisibles), as well as dozens of others over the years, yeah, it made my New Year's Eve pretty nice. Thanks Jill!

Fast not-too-far-forward to New Year's Day, and comedian Ross Noble, who I had mostly known for years from Just A Minute until recently, was encouraging people to make interesting pictures with his Smiley Sam The Smiling Ham (the explanation would take too long...read about it on his Twitter page http://twitter.com/realrossnoble --I'd give you an actual link, but for some reason I can't seem to do that on Blogger, and I've been trying for the last 10 minutes to figure it out; it just won't let me do it, despite following their instructions). So I printed out a pic of Sam, cut out the face, and taped it to the head of a really cool hand made clown my Mom had given me for X-Mas. She makes these herself, and they get sold in the gift shop of the local hospital she volunteers at. For some reason, the orange one hadn't moved (all the others come and go pretty quick), so I had mentioned to her she should send it to me for X-Mas (she still lives in New York, while I'm coming up on 10 years out here in Las Vegas). The funny thing is, even though she makes these herself, she's a little creeped out by them. I think it's terrific, and it sits proudly on an entertainment center/bookshelf here in my home office. She knew I really liked it based on the fact that it sits next to a picture I took of deceased race car driver Greg Moore and his still alive father Ric, that both had signed for me many years ago. I even presented both with their own copies of the photo, just because I thought it was a nice shot of the close pair.

After taping Smiley Sam's ham-face to the clown's head, I snapped a picture of it (again, using the iPhone; damn thing does everything...), and sent it to Ross via Twitter. This is another thing I enjoy about Twitter. People I admire that I normally would have no other means of ever having any contact with are suddenly reasonably accessible. Ross lives in the UK, but spends a large amount of time travelling the Eastern Hemishpere, be it the rest of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and so on. He's got various travel programs available, as well as tour documentaries on his stand-up comedy DVD's (of which I have a few now, thanks to Steve!).

Maybe an hour after tweeting the picture, I see a post from Ross that says, "This Is no question the most scary thing I have ever seen." That was followed by a link, which I clicked, seeing as how I was curious as to what could have a mind as brillantly unstable as his running scared. The link caught me completely by surprise, as it led to this;





http://img129.yfrog.com/i/rxs.jpg/


Needless to say, seeing that it was my own picture that had scared him made me laugh quite hard. I was quite pleased that I'd apparently made an impression on him. Not really sure how my Mom is going to react when she reads this, though...

When Ross does shows, at the intermission, people often leave objects on the stage, so that when he comes back on, he just starts commenting on whatever interests him. His shows are filled more with off the cuff stream of consciousness than actual material, which is his true genius. The man is just funny, with nothing prepared. He HAS very funny material, it just gets relegated behind the tangents he goes off on, which are also extremely funny, and that's why he's so good on Just A Minute. So, if he ever does any shows in the United States (and I'm not sure if scaring him like this will help...), I'm bringing the clown with me to leave on stage in the interval. Not sure if I should re-tape Smiley Sam's face on or not...

Thanks Ross, and thanks/sorry Mom! (BTW, as of this writing, Ross' posting of my pic has had nearly 4,000 hits, in less than 24 hours...lotta weirdos out there...)

Update; it's now about 5:45 AM on Sun the 3rd of Jan, and it seems Ross is still enjoying Smiley Sam The Clown Ham. A comedian friend of his, Jason Manford, was apparently distressed about gaining some weight. Ross, in an effort to make him feel better, started tweeting him pics of Smiley Sam, including mine...

twitter.com/realrossnoble @Jason_Manford how about this http://yfrog.com/3gbd3cj

Twitter is so much fun...


Blog Post Soundtrack; Allman Brothers, The New York Dolls, The Doors, The Smiths, Fear Factory, Faith No More, Fu Manchu, Orange 9MM, Pantera, Black Sabbath, Son House, Corrosion Of Conformity, Prong, a track from Mel Brooks' 1968 movie The Producers, Les Claypool Frog Brigade, Clutch, Public Image Ltd.

More Death At The Post Office

So for a number of years out here, my job was to fill in for five specific carriers on their rotating days off. Each carrier had one day off a week (in addition to Sunday), so I would wind up doing a different route every day, within that group of five. One of the carriers, at the time I was doing this, was pushing 70, but we've always joked about him being a million years old. We frequently ask him about his days in the Pony Express, and he shoots back that when he started, they rode dinosaurs! Every once in a while during the mornings in the office, if he happens to stroll down the aisle where my case is, I'll shout "Dead Man Walking", or yell out "Lazarus!". Gotta have some fun.

This man is very popular on his route, so much so that when I would be out there, old ladies would come up to me and ask, "What happened to that nice old man who used to do this route?" Remember, the carriers are only off one day a week other than Sunday. These ladies had just seen the guy yesterday. "Used to do this route?" I finally got so sick of this ridiculous query, that one day, without picking my head up from the box I was putting mail in, I told a woman who had asked me that, "Oh, I'm sorry ma'am, he died". As I continued to casually put mail into the box, I could see out of the corner of my eye the look of shock take over her face, and her jaw drop down to about her waistline. I honestly can't remember if I let her off the hook and told her it was just his day off, or if I let her just think the worst, knowing full well she'd see him again the next day.

So the carrier came back the following day, and did his route as usual. When I saw him the next morning, he yells, "You been tellin' people on my route I'm dead?!?" "Yup". "Oh, okay".

These same women would also tell me, because I wasn't getting there at the times they were used to from him, "You must be new". An attitude of you-don't-know-what-you're-doing was dripping off every word. I'd been doing this job for 6 or 7 years at the time, so it kind of offended me, so when they would tell me I was new, I'd tell them, "No, I'm 31 years old!". They seemed to stop with the smarmy comments after that...

The funny thing is, every fall, he would take 6 weeks off to go back to the Illinois area on vacation. I never had to say a word to anyone on his route after the first week. They just started taking up a collection for his next of kin.

As I write this, the man is about two months from his 76th birthday, still carrying his route five times a week. We make fun of him because we all can only hope to be half as spry and full of energy as him. His sense of humor is also bigger than the fire that would be started were we to give him a birthday cake with the number of candles that we claim his age is.


Blog Post Soundtrack; The latter portion of The Roots Come Alive!

You Are Soooo Good Looking...

Recently a friend of mine at the office told me that her daughter had accidently grabbed her glasses that morning, so that she was now wearing her daughter's glasses. They both have similar frames, hence the mistake. The perscriptions are slightly different, however. I asked her if this was going to screw up her vision at all that day. She said it would probably mess with it a little. She then turned, looked up at me, and said, "Oh, Ken, you look good!"

I have friends everywhere...


Blog Post Soundtrack; Montreal Canadiens at Chicago Blackhawks

We Actually Deliver The Dead As Well

Yeah, yeah, another Postal anecdote. What can I say, I've had a few interesting stories accumulate over the past 14 years on the job...

Back in Roslyn Heights, a fairly affluent suburb on Long Island, New York, I never had my own route. My job was to cover 5 different routes on their rotating days off. Consequently, I would only see each route once a week. Even so, I would start to pick up little nuances about each route here and there.

One particular house had a fairly decent sized dog that would always bark loudly as I walked his cul de sac. His house happened to be the last one on that relay, so I would hear him barking at me, over the noise from my Walkman (remember those, kids? Told you I've been doing this a long time), for quite a few minutes before I got to his house. He would run up and down the yard alongside the house, happily barking away, I think somewhat upset that he was trapped behind this fence while I was outside able to roam free and have fun.

So one week, I must've made it about halfway thru that cul de sac before I realized that I hadn't heard "Cujo" (I never did know the dog's name) barking. While I did think that was unusual, I just figured they were out for the day, or he'd been taken to the vet for a check-up, or a trip to the park, something innocuous like that.

Fast forward to the next week when I was on that route again, and this time I had a Registered parcel for that house. A Registered item is one that needs a signature from the recipient. The box was slightly smaller than one that could hold a football helmet, so I could fit it in my bag.

Again, as I walked the cul de sac, I noticed the lack of annoying, but happy, barking. As I approached their house, I reached into my bag to get the parcel out. As I stood at their door, I started to write up the parcel, and this was the first time I'd noticed who the sender was.

As the woman of the house opened the door, I asked her if this box that needed to be signed for contained what, or who, I thought it did, as it was from a local pet mortuary. She wistfully confirmed my suspicions. You see, the Registered parcel I was delivering to her contained the ashes of the recently deceased "Cujo". I offered my condolences, and as I walked back to my truck, I turned the volume down a little on my Walkman.


Blog Post Soundtrack: watching/listening to the Rangers lose to the Sharks

We Deliver To The Dead

Really, other things do happen in my life, but I get reminded here and there about these Postal episodes that have happened that are just so funny or unusual that I tend to write mostly about them. Case in point...

I first transferred to Henderson in March of 2000. When you transfer, you go to the bottom of the seniority list within that particular office, but you keep your overall seniority in the Post Office. So, as low man on the totem pole within the office, you have to do some things that the others no longer have to.

About once every 3 or 4 weeks or so, it became my turn to work on a Sunday delivering Express Mail. Two people from my office would work each Sunday and holiday doing this. The nite before, you would park a Postal vehicle out in front of the office, and take the keys home with you. Then you'd go back to the office Sunday morning, pick up the truck, and drive to the Postal hangar at the airport to get the Express Mail for your area of town.

My office covered a large section of Henderson, and also incorporated the areas where all of the rapid growth and expansion was going on. There was a lot of territory to cover, and only 2 people to do it, so it involved a lot of driving. It was common to put 60 miles on the truck in one Sunday. I enjoyed it though, because it afforded me an opportunity to see areas of Henderson I didn't get to see during the week, and as I was looking to buy a house at the time, that worked out nicely.

On this one particular summer Sunday, after having done a few pieces of Express Mail, I pulled up at another house. I went to the door, delivered this piece to a pleasant older woman, and went back out to the truck. I then sat there doing paperwork and lining out where I'd be driving for my next few Express pieces. After a few minutes, the woman came out to the truck, and very nicely asked me when this piece had been mailed out. I told her that it was probably the day before, but that you could see it right here on the label...

...which showed a date roughly TWO MONTHS prior to that particular day. My jaw hit the floor, and I turned to the woman, apologized to her, and explained that it had probably been left in a piece of equipment that had been thought empty. I told her the sender could call the number on the label to get a refund that they were obviously due, at which point she very matter-of-factly said to me, "Oh, that's okay, this was for my husband, and he's dead now..."

At this point, it was all I could do to keep from laughing. I know that may sound cruel, but the situation was so absurd, it was the only reaction I had. The woman was amazingly cool about the entire situation, and wasn't visibly upset, didn't raise her voice, nothing to hint any dismay. I really did feel bad about it, I apologized for the loss of her husband, and I seem to recall chatting with her for a couple more minutes. I have no idea what was in that envelope, but I can only hope it wasn't a release form from an insurance company that was going to allow him to take some medication that would have kept him alive.


Blog Post Soundtrack: Slipknot, The Runaways, Prong, Hermano, Madness, Clutch

You Do What You Gotta Do

Here's another Post Office story. It may be in slightly-off taste, so it's remotely possible that this may bother someone, in which case, I suggest doing two things. 1.) Don't read any further, and 2.) take a look at the world around you and realize that life's too short to be offended by petty stuff. Now then, on with our show!

I've been a mailman for quite a while now (14 years this month, matter of fact...happy anniversary to me!), so I've encountered many different situations. In talking with a gentleman a couple days ago at one of the apartment complexes (complecies?) I deliver to, I was reminded of this incident.

I started out carrying mail in Roslyn Heights, which is on Long Island, a fairly affluent suburb of New York City. It's a predominantly upper middle class residential area, with each house being kinda large, and a little bit of property as well. While my office only had about 15 routes in it, it covered a decent amount of territory geographically speaking.

Since this was an area of New York, we were subject to the phenomenon known as winter (something basically unheard of out here in the greater Las Vegas area). With a 7AM start time, you were generally leaving the office to go to the street at 9:30 or so, on average. With an 8 hour day ending at 3:30PM, this meant roughly 5 and change hours out in the cold, damp, NY winter weather. Sounds like fun so far, right?

And don't think the vehicle offered any solace from the elements. While you may have been shielded from any falling rain or snow, the little tin LLV's (Long Life Vehicles, as the small boxey-shaped Postal Vehicles are known) are practically incapable of generating any heat. You needed to have the vehicle running for a good 10 minutes before the engine (and I use that word loosely) started to produce anything remotely resembling warmth in the cabin. But you never had to drive for more than a few seconds at a time to get from a parking spot to your next delivery section's parking spot. Only the trips to and from the routes in the mornings and afternoons involved a journey of a few minutes or so.

Now, with this being a mostly residential area, and really no business section anywhere within range of the routes, finding a place to go to the bathroom during the day, if necessary, could be interesting. You couldn't just drive for a minute and pop in the local Target to use their restroom. And it was even more of a challenge for someone with my particular assignment. I didn't have one permanent route, I had a set of 5 that I filled in for on those carrier's days off. And if that person came in on their day off to work overtime, I got bumped to a different route. Consequently, doing a route at most once a week, it was difficult to get to know anyone on the routes well enough to be comfortable with asking to be able to use the bathroom in their home.

Basically, you had to just do your best to make sure you weren't going to have to do anything over the course of the day. Or, you had to be somewhat resourceful if you did need to do anything. Most of the "male" carriers (yes, we've all done that joke a thousand times...) would just carry a bottle around in the truck, for the occasional time that it was necessary. The women were pretty much forced to go to someone's house, I guess. I'll have to ask in my current office if any females are from cold weather regions, and what they did in those situations. 95% of our office is from somewhere else. Very few Vegas-area carriers started here. We're all from somewhere else.

Anyway, in filling in for one of the guys, one day I got in the truck in his route, and found the bottle he kept in it, with a small sample of liquid in it, that he must have just forgotten to take out of the truck the day before. I just smiled, tucked it under the seat, and spotted an opportunity for comedy.

Upon this carrier's return to work the following day, I told him, across the workroom floor, with a very serious and straight face, that I hoped he didn't mind, but I'd gotten real thirsty at some point yesterday, and I had some of that lemonade he kept in that bottle in the truck. In the midst of everyone else laughing, shaking their heads, and/or having disgusted looks on their faces, this carrier's eyes got very wide, as he knew immediately what bottle I was referring to, and was very afraid I'd actually done this! I kept that straight face for a few seconds, as he stood there open-mouthed, then let him off the hook, informing him that while I may look stupid, that's only because I am...wait, that's not right...


Blog Post Soundtrack: Probot, The Dandy Warhols, Pink Floyd, Kyuss, The Minutemen, The Doors, Queens Of The Stone Age, Monty Python, Led Zeppelin, Zeke, Fu Manchu

Man Bites Dog

Okay, so I'm a mailman. I enjoy it, I've got a lot of cool people on my route, including fellow blogger Mollie. But it is a government agency, meaning no one in power has any clue as to what they're doing. Case in point, today's adventures.

Roughly once a year, this private company, whose name I won't mention to avoid completely embarrassing them, is hired by the Post Office to give the carriers a training talk/demonstration on how to avoid dog bites. A team of about a half-dozen people and 3 dogs come in their Winnebago. The dogs are trained to attack for demonstration purposes (the fact that they're wearing electric shock collars doesn't help either). The main trainers/speakers spend plenty of time throughout the demo telling us that dogs in general, while somewhat predictable, can never really be trusted, because this could be the time that the dog goes from barking only to maybe this time finally biting. Except, of course, for their dogs, who are completely under their control, and only bite when they're told to (they were very insistent about this point, being sure to repeat it several times over the course of the demo).

So they asked for 3 volunteers amongst the 100 or so carriers in my office (I work out of the largest office in Henderson). The 3 volunteers were brought into the Winnebago to, one at a time, put on the protective dog bite suit. It's the kinda big, puffy, multi-layered thing that makes the person wearing it look like Ralphie's little brother Randy in his snowsuit in A Christmas Story, except they're also wearing a full cage helmet like college hockey players wear. The sort of thing you'd love to be wearing in the middle of the desert in late summer.

The first victim...sorry, vlounteer, has a German Shepherd released from about 10 yards away. It comes bearing down on him, makes a flying leap, and bites the suit as it's supposed to. Pretty scary if you're in the suit, I imagine. I say "I imagine" because I'm not one of the volunteers. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid...

Now we move on to the next person. We have a similar attack, except he was told to stand with his arm extended. A different dog again covers the same 10 yard distance in the blink of an eye, and built up enough speed and momentum to actually knock this carrier over. There was a trainer-guy standing behind the suited-up carrier, and he did his best to keep him from completely falling over upon being mauled. So as he helps the carrier back to his feet, the main trainer comes over, puts a doggie toy in front of the dog to attract its attention, and starts to walk him back towards the Winnebago, showing and telling us that this is really a friendly dog, and again, will only attack and bite when told to...

...or when the dog can get a look at, or smell, exposed fingers. You see, the suit has long sleeves on it, long enough that you can retract your hands within the sleeves. But as the dog was being walked around the carrier on its way back, it turned its head away from the doggie toy and started to look at the sleeve. And then he stuck his snout into the sleeve. And then he bit down on what he was able to get a hold of in the sleeve, which turned out to be the carrier's hand. He was quickly yanked away, so no one was quite sure if anything had happened. And then this dog was given 2 more runs at this same carrier in the suit. Now the carrier is brought over to the Winnebago to remove the suit while the trainers continue talking to us. It's only when the sleeves were removed, and the carrier's right hand was exposed, completely covered in blood, that anyone realized just how serious this was.

After a couple minutes, with frantic Postal managers running around getting paper towels and things, the third volunteer to be brought before the firing squad emerges from the Winnebago, all suited up for his impending demise ("I regret that I have but one life to give for my Post Office..."). But I noticed something interesting, in that this time, the carrier was wearing what looked like boxing glove mittens that completely covered his hands, which I thought was odd, seeing as how neither of the first 2 volunteers had these on when they were presented as raw meat for the dogs. I asked the bite victim about this later, and he told me that the trainer guy who dressed him for the slaughter was fairly new, and had forgotten to put the gloves on him. Can you say, "lawsuit"?

So what have we learned at todays' dog bite class, children? Well, we learned how to get bit by dogs and have blood drawn, that the Post Office only works with the best, and that you should never trust anyone, no matter how many legs they stand on.

Blog Post Soundtrack; Brant Bjork, P.J. Harvey, The Police, Anthrax, Megadeth, S.O.D., Infectious Grooves (covering David Bowie), Jimi Hendrix, Rollins Band, Clutch, Blondie, The New York Dolls, The White Stripes, The Misfits, Louis Jordan, The Bakerton Group