Beach Writer in the Rocky Mountains

My home might be the only one in our neighborhood that doesn’t use a curbside mailbox even though one was present on our curb for a few years. We had a terrible time with that wobbly mailbox frequently falling off of its pole, and we would have to retrieve it, re-position and secure it. We finally decided that renting a post office box at our local post office would work best for our postal needs. One June when I was in our front yard, I looked at the old mailbox and thought I should check to see if it had a wasp nest inside before we asked someone to remove and discard it for us permanently. I carefully cracked the mailbox door open and peered inside, hoping that I would not invite a swarm of wasps. Thankfully, there was no wasp nest. But I was quite surprised to find a plate of cookies and a lovely Christmas card from my neighbor, Kathy Neibert. Oh, what a laugh I had. On the following Sunday, I approached Kathy and said, “Thank you, Kathy. I got your Christmas cookies and card this week.” She looked at me with wide-eyes and said, “What?” I explained that we don’t use the old mailbox, but before having it pulled up and discarded, I found her cookies and card sitting inside. She laughed and laughed, and that made me laugh even harder. I explained, “I hope you didn’t think we were ungrateful for your Christmas gift at the time, but we truly didn’t know it was in the old mailbox at the curb.” She was still laughing when she replied, “I didn’t think that. You weren’t home when I brought them to your door, and I thought you’d get them from the mailbox the next day. I had forgotten about it since then, but at the time I thought you were just busy with the holidays and we neither spoke of it. That is too funny!” I don’t know who laughed harder, but we both enjoyed a good laugh about it together.