sʃʃıɥ ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ pǝpɐǝɥ

I am the sort of person who thanks the mail man, and thinks the people who clean up the street, take out the garbage, and repave the road do the finest work in San Francisco. I am grateful to them, and tell them so every chance I get.

Yet, I thought my mail man was a jerk. He wouldn’t give me my mail without an ID, and he never comes upstairs to deliver registered letters or parcels. I’d really written him off and just decided that his scowl was not my problem, and we would never interact pleasantly. Fair enough, not everyone’s gonna like me, and sometimes I’m a regular punching bag. That’s life.

Recently I’ve had trouble receiving a registered letter from the IRS. I tried waiting on the steps, saying hello, writing notes to the mail carrier, and nothing worked. Just more slips, and avoidance. I tried to go to the office to collect the letters, and the office said that they didn’t have them, they were in the mail carrier’s possession. How was I supposed to get my mail?

Today when the truck pulled up, I walked out into the street with my slips in my hand for the showdown. Calm, and wide eyed, I said “Good afternoon” with a smile.

We talked. It turns out he’s a drummer, almost at retirement. He said he’d been watching my mail and can see that I’m having some trouble. I faltered. He reached out and gave me a strong, manly hug, and the number of an accountant who could help, someone who doesn’t charge much money and once helped him out of a jam over CD duplication and sales 18 years ago.

“Don’t worry,” He said with twinkling eyes beneath a spiky toupee. “All things are in balance. Good comes, and bad comes. You must welcome it together as a guest in your heart.”

I gave him another hug. We shook hands and stared into one another’s eyes.

Damn I love being wrong.