Powered By Blogger

Inspirational Reads

What Can Brown Do For Me?

December 24, 2009

Well, I just got off the phone with my local post office. Seems as though the package I ordered December 16th and was shipped to me on December 17th and was supposed to arrive to me on December 22nd won't get here until after Christmas. Really? You know, you could have thrown the package on the back of a truck and driven it from Nevada to Durham in that amount of time, but apparently, it hasn't arrived in Raleigh yet. According to them.

Here's the rub: the shipment tracking that I'm using to follow the status of my package? It says the package arrived in Raleigh Monday night. At 9:46 PM. But, you know, that's a fucking lie, according to the postal service. That was auto-generated by the people in California, according to the postal service.

Looks like I'll be doing all of my business through UPS and FedEx from now on. Fuckstains.

Dump on top of this frustration that I went out this morning to buy the food for the Christmas feast. Traffic was ten times worse than the crowds at Target or Kroger. Although, both places were out of fresh thyme. Who the fuck runs out of thyme?

They were probably waiting for a fresh shipment from the USPS. Cockknockers.

You know what? Fuck you, postal service. You are not stealing my fucking Christmas spirit. Where's the fucking eggnog?

So, to make me feel all warm and glowy on the inside, I'm going to talk my wife into some hot, angry sex tell you a story about my favorite time traveling for Christmas.

With my mother- and father-in-law living in South Bend, IN and my parents in the Fort Wayne area, we have, in the past, driven up to Indiana in order to celebrate the holidays. When my thirtieth birthday rolled around, we decided to head up to Indiana so that I could see my family and get drunk enough to pass out on the couch mid-sentence have delightful and intellectual conversations with some of my college buddies.

The bonus prize in all this tomfoolery? There was a six-inch snow pack on the ground in northern Indiana. We were hoping we'd be able to celebrate a white Christmas with the kids. As luck would have it, a massive bubble of warm air traveled up the Mississippi and situated itself over the lower great lakes valley that week, and as we were driving up, the snow was melting.

When we drive up, we go up through a brief slice of Virginia and up through almost the whole of West Virginia and up to Ohio, where we cut across countryside and go through Columbus and then head up 75 to Lima and cut over there to Fort Wayne and then on up to South Bend. It's a long drive. Since the kids were little, we tried to make that drive at night, so they could sleep.

Crossing into West Virginia, there was snow on the ground. By the time we got to the point where we were crossing over the breadth of Ohio, the snow was almost totally melted. It was actually warmer at three in the morning in Ohio than it had been at six o'clock in the evening in North Carolina. All the melted snow plus the rising temperatures caused things to be foggy, but not so much that it completely obscured the roads. It was sort of a heavy haze hanging over the fields and forests of the Buckeye State.

Fortunately, Ohio was one of those places where the glaciers had flattened everything out all nice and dandy. What that meant was that I could look out over the plains and see, literally, for miles, because the highway was raised slightly in relationship to the farmlands stretching out toward the horizon.

Every little farmhouse and every little homestead had their lights on that night. So, I could look out and, through the gloom of the darkest part of the night, see hundreds of twinkling lights in every shade imaginable. It was beautiful. It was magnificent. It was truly magical.

My heart swelled three times that day.

Whenever I need a little pick-me-up--like, if the fucking postal service is dicking me over with a special little gift that I had ordered for my wife to brighten her Christmas--I think about the trip across central Ohio and looking out through the black and blue and gray haze and seeing little spots of colored lights shining through the murk.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Addendum:

This is fucking brilliant. Go read it.

12 comments:

Rita said...

Merry Christmas to you too! I'm sorry to hear that the post office has once again effed up the shipment of presents. Government work at it's finest.

Wishing you and your family a lovely holiday!

Just Another Momma said...

The post office sucks, they "lost" some of our shit, bastards! Merry Christmas!

Chemgeek said...

"...a story about my favorite time traveling for Christmas."

I love time travel for Christmas too. This year I traveled back in time to last Christmas since I finally finished my Christmas shopping.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Alex said...

Awww, shucks, twinkling lights make me happy too especially when Australia Post decides to go on strike the week before Xmas and all my kids presents are on order from Hong Kong. Cool.

Mala said...

Lets hope that IF and when your package arrives, there's no holes in her (except the ones that are supposed to be there).

Amber Tidd Murphy said...

I would be so pissed if a gift I bought was lost in the mail.

That sucks ass.

But, I'm sure your wife will understand.

Merry Christmas, Jenks.

corticoWhat said...

I get it...."Who runs out of thyme (time)" before Christmas? Brilliant!

words...words...words... said...

I loved the part about seeing the farmhouse lights miles away. It reminds me of how I like to spend the 4th of July in LA. If you go up in the hills to the observatory, you can see 10 or 15 different fireworks displays going off at the same time for miles around. You don't see any of them close up, but it's a stunning thing to see.

Merry Christmas! (And thanks for the shout out.)

Ed Adams said...

Merry Christmas!

Was ordering sooner not an option?

Just sayin'

Scope said...

Some postal worker's wife in Raleigh is at this moment, enjoying the gift meant for your wife.

Merry FN Christmas.

Jan @ Struck by Serendipity said...

I was able to look at Christmas lights from an airplane this year - it was beautiful!

Nej said...

I, luckily, did not mail....or have anything mailed to me this year. Something always gets lost or messed up.

L.O.V.E. it when barns are decorated. Puts me in the Christmas mood instantly...especially with snow on the ground.