'Cause now there are so many bunnies

[austin_dern]

So, last Saturday, I needed to mail a postcard, and I was heading up to Manhattan. It was most urgent I remember to keep the card in my bookbag and to go to the post office at the Port Authority so you can guess what I remembered I meant to do when I was on the subway heading away from the Port Authority.

Incidentally, on the cross-town subway a slightly overdressed fellow wheeled on a cart; I didn't pay attention until I was almost done with that leg of my journey, so I was surprised to see he was a magician, and he was in the midst of using a magic box to produce a white rabbit with black spots before our eyes. I recommend taking the magician/bunny lines if you can.

Still I assumed there would be a Post Office, or at least a mailbox, somewhere around the subway station, which was not quite as true as I hoped. On the street I started poking around, walking a block down this way and that, without seeing any hints of even a mailbox except for one which was painted rust-brown and had no openings anywhere on it. (What is the objective of those sealed mailboxes, anyway?) I considered going into an apartment building or hotel to see if they might be able to help.

And then down the street walked a guy wearing Post Office garb. Despite my shyness I asked him where a mailbox or Post Office was so I could send this postcard. He explained the nearest Post Office was three blocks down and one over and I'd need to hurry before it closed if I wanted things delivered today, and it couldn't be delivered Monday because of the holiday. (Metric Thanksgiving.) I explained it didn't matter if it was delivered today, and he repeated I'd have to go there to get it delivered today. I reassured him I didn't care when it arrived, and when he was satisfied with that he suggested he could just take the card, if I didn't mind that it wouldn't be delivered today. That was fine by me, and I gave him the card.

Naturally as he walked off with my card in hand I wondered if he actually worked for the Post Office or if he just strolled around in the uniform to see what happened to him. But several days later I got the news my card arrived successfully, so I suppose if he was a counterfeit he lived up to the expectations put on him.

Trivia: During the 19 October 1987 New York Stock Exchange crash 604 million shares traded hands, more than double the previous one-day volume record. Source: An Empire Of Wealth: The Epic History Of American Economic Power, John Steele Gordon.

Currently Reading: Forests Of The Night, S Andrew Swann. What do you know, I had forgotten the mongoose. I remembered the bunny, though.

Comments

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

During the 19 October 1987 New York Stock Exchange crash 604 million shares traded hands

Friday, 1,740,191,000 shares traded hands on the NYSE in what was as close to a "normal" day as things have gone lately.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Things certainly have changed from the days when forty shares trading hands would cause everybody to freak out, haven't they?

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

Those olive drab mailboxes are Relay Boxes. Mail is placed in them for delivery and retrieved by a carrier along the route.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Ah, all right. As it happens my Post Office guy went right past without looking at it, but I suppose they can't all be responsible for every box.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're quite forgiven. I forgot the mongoose after the first time reading it, too, and if I can do that..

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I suppose it'd be easier to remember if there were an exciting scene with cobras ... wait a minute, you reread it without a special interest in the uplifted specieseses?

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, the first time I read it- which was after the creation of Chiaroscuro, mind- I had no real "Oh wow Mongoose oh wow" reaction. This surprises me. The second time, though, it was a reaction of "He's a mongoose, wait, how did I not get bouncy about this before?"

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I suppose I had a roughly similar reaction to the discovery one of the Spellsinger novels had a coati in it. When I read that book originally I hadn't heard of coatis so didn't notice.