Our postman is way too familiar I’ve decided.
Due to an upcoming trip, Mac and I have had to renew our passports and this gives the postman – our man in full leather, motorcycle helmet and sunglasses – reason to pound on the front glass. He’s had to do this four times over the last two months, and each time it’s like being visited by the Postal Inquisition.
On arrival of Mac’s passport, he asked me to sign my name on the techno-gizmo he had. ’oh, Rosemary? That’s a really old fashioned name! I only knew one Rosemary. She’s very old. How old are you?’
In typical Rosemary fashion, I tried to make a joke.
On the arrival of a present from my sister in Singapore, he inquired about Mac’s bike inside the door. ’Oh, who rides that sort of bike in this house?’. It was as though this vehicle was a Tour de France memento, or some sort of weird Penny Farthing. In typical bike-riding fashion, I asked him if he has to supply his own motorbike for the mail run, or if it’s issued.
When my passport arrived, he had the audacity to presume: ’I s’pose you’ve been waiting for this, Rosemary. You taking a trip?’
Unlike Mac, I find it very rude to say ‘what’s it to ya?’ when people ask me questions in a polite fashion. Like the well-brought up woman I was suppose to be I answered ‘yes’ to the trip question. He then spent the best part of two (tax-payer’s) minutes chatting about traveling and how amazing it is, and how he knows so and so in the States and Mrs Kafoops in SE Asia. By the time the monologue was over I felt as though our postman was channeling one of the Attenboroughs without the sexy accent. He finally left after telling me of his dream to venture into South America.
Then a care package arrived from Amy in Oregon. It was her Season 1 copy of The Gilmore Girls, a television show I imagined I would dislike from the onset. Why? Perhaps it was me judging a book from its cover, but it arrived at a time where I had just caught the flu and I needed a couple of days rest. (LOVE it, btw, but more on that later.)
Guess what? It came in a big parcel. And yes, Bozo the Familiar had to get off his motorcycle and launch upon our doorstep. I tried to ignore him. Feverish was I, unmade up and disheveled from bed, looking every bit a Rosemary the Old, but I was expecting this delivery. I pulled a jacket over the tracksuit, scrunched the hair a bit and rocked up to our front door.
‘Gidday Rosemary.’ So familiar now, it was like water off a duck’s back! I wasn’t in the mood to chat. I just wanted my box-set from the US and for biker boy to go away. ’You’ve been getting lots of these lately, but this looks too big for a passport.’
The politically incorrect Aussie might say it was an explosive-something or a baby from Ebay, but Rosemary the Old just nodded and gave a feeble smile. I was too scared to say ‘it’s something from a friend’ in case he regaled me with a tale about having a friend once, what his name was and where he travelled to – I chose to say ‘some DVDs’ in between bouts of coughing. He still didn’t get the hint.
‘Oh. Yeah. Movies or TV?’ I know, I know. I should be getting really cranky by now and just slam the door shut on him. But I didn’t and I don’t! He’s never unpleasant, just very nosey.
‘TV. Season 1 of The Gilmore Girls’. Apparently it’s great!’
And that was it – I hit the jackpot. He moved away quickly while flinging the final words over his shoulder. The threat of flu couldn’t scare him, but the idea of chick-TV could!
‘Never heard of it. Doesn’t sound like the type of show a bloke like me ‘ed watch.’
Oh? What a shame! Thank God for Lorelai and Rory, eh?
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