Yesterday morning, after picking up scones for me & Gerri (artistic sustenance), I made a quick stop at the post office on my way out of town. The lobby of the old building on 9th Street was open, but the window was not yet, so I was the only one inside.

Please note: You can send notes to me/Rich at P.O. Box 828, Ocean City, NJ 08226. I still love getting mail; there’s something so intimate about it that even an “old-fashioned” e-mail will never be able to match. Maybe that’s why I subscribe to so many magazines, too: to receive something that can be handled.

(Confession: Also, when I was in London for a year, at one point I sensed that my family was not missing me as much as was proper. So I might have signed up for a few catalogues in my name to be delivered to the family homestead; you know, just so they’d keep me in mind.)

Anyway, I was expecting a rather Charlie Brown moment yesterday––just me peering into an empty tunnel––but instead, when I unlatched the little door, a locker key fell out(!!). It rather terrified me, to be honest. I shoved it back into the box, thinking it was some sort of mistake, and took off, all tantivy-like, to Gerri’s house. Was I being implicated in some espionage; some bit of intrigue?

But today I returned, to mail a few notes out to friends, and to face the box & the mysterious key. I half-hoped that the jigger would have been retrieved. But, no, it was still there. I took it out, prepared to stand in line to return it to the postmaster, but then I read the tag attached.

I realized that this mystery was meant for me. I gumshoed around the P.O. boxes to the back wall where the gang of lockers lurk. I startled an old man who was sorting through his mail at a small shelf. He apologized & scampered off. (Old men can be so curious at times.)

I located Locker #301.

The key clicked pleasingly into place & I retrieved my package––from The Regional Assembly of Text!

Everything was so pleasingly wrapped. I bought a few cards & little books & also subscribed to The Regional Assembly’s “Little Book A Month” club.

So; “mystery” solved! I can only hope that my little book is placed in a locker every month. My quiet, little life could really use the monthly thrill. (Not that the little books are not frisson enough, of course.)

Now I must return to preparing my own mini-zines for this week/next.