The Things We Guys Suffer For Love

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”.

I’ve seen these words inscribed in stone above the entrance to a Post Office; they are a sort of unofficial motto for your mail man.

The Greek historian Herodotus first wrote these words concerning the postal system of the ancient Persians during the reign of King Cyrus, who is ,mentioned in the Bible’s Book of Esther by his Persian name, Ahasuerus.

Ahasuerus lived about 500 years before Christ.

Herodotus marveled that the Persians could get a letter from the Mediterranean coast all the way to India in only three days!

What brings this to my mind?

Well, Thursday morning Ginny wanted me to mail a Christmas package for her.

I spent three and a half hours just trying to get that package from my house – not to India -- but to the local post office!

Yes. My Beloved Wife actually sent me to a post office…

In December…

Just days before Christmas…

And here I thought she loved me.

Of course she needed the car to go to her office Christmas Party, so I went to a restaurant near the Post Substation to hang out till the window opened, then I walked down to the substation only to find a sign on the door saying it was closed due to a fire.

Ok. I’ll just walk to another substation in the other direction; it’s only about two miles… but I haven’t been there for a while so I’d better call ahead.

That substation was closed due to budget cuts.

So I walked back home carrying this dumb package Ginny wanted me to mail.

I called my daughter Eve for a ride to yet another Post Office.

No answer.

I called my daughter Jennifer. She was getting ready for a school program to help kids make gingerbread houses but she rushed by and drove me to a Post Office where less than 800 people stood in line.

Mostly guys.

Carrying packages.

The clerk asked me how soon I wanted the package to get there.

I told him I didn’t care if it ever got there as long as I didn’t have to carry it around anymore.

He asked me what was in the package –Flammables? Explosives?. Guns?

“I have no idea, my wife told me to come to the Post Office and mail it”.

“Oh,” he said, “The things we do for love”.

He’s obviously a married man too.

When I finally got back home, Eve called saying she’d got my earlier message off her machine and was sorry she missed my call but would I like to go to lunch?

She took me to a Chinese buffet and filled me in on what’s happening at her library. She’s spearheading a drive to cull duplicate books from the Jacksonville library system to restock libraries in town flooded by Hurricane Katrina.

She’s also involved in a project where people in her library knit warm afghans for an old folks home up in Wisconsin where they’ve been having a blizzard with sub-zero temperatures – and where, last week, according to the Chicago Tribune newspaper, in the town of Mauston, Mr. Ralph Hamm pulled out of his drive and hit an animal.

He got out of his car only to discover that he had run over and killed a kangaroo.

Yes, a kangaroo.

Now the burning question I have about that incident is why would anyone, even a yankee, go out of his house in a subzero blizzard?

The newspaper doesn’t say, but perhaps he was mailing a package for his wife?

We guys do crazy things for love. Once, back when I was young and dumb and unmarried, I actually drove Ginny to a shopping mall on Christmas Eve!

How insane is that!

And what happened as I drove her there was one of those things that are hilarious funny to read about but terrible embarrassing to live.

I wrote a piece about it called Warnings & Illicit Kissing On Christmas Eve.

Ah, yes, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways… but going to a mall or a post office again before Christmas ain’t one of them.