Apart from being dead, the mouse looked extremely healthy. Miniature (bad news) soft grey fur, it was flushed down the upstairs toilet. There was no ceremony.
Then things got worse. There are some days that you might as well be hiking up Kilimanjaro worrying about altitude sickness and the melting glaciers than staying at home in your village in the Geneva countryside.
A morning trip to the post office was essential—voting forms, a parcel, and a letter. This now entails either a dangerous bike ride through the music-pounding commuter cars, or you brush the wet leaves off your automobile and race along with them. Unfortunately, our own convenient village post office closed down some years back, and we now have to travel about five kilometres up the hill to the next one.
There, my friendly post-lady was in a flap, as I enquired about recent transactions on my post office account and was told to go to a post machine in town. To try to cheer her up, I began our yearly bonding ritual centred on dates and weights for sending parcels to Canada for Christmas. At this point she lost the plot completely and told me I had to order stamps on-line as she was shutting down in a couple of weeks.
I understood she was having a bad day or that I was still delirious after the mouse episode and I returned home to take stock.
When the mornin
g mail was delivered, all became clear. A flyer, featuring a carefully-coiffed, grey-haired, pear-earringed, pleasantly smiling, smartly-jacketed, leather shoulder-bagged, fingernail-painted Swiss white woman (she is holding a bundle of exciting-looking letters and voting forms) explained NOT that the post office was shutting down, but that it was relocating to a grocery store right beside the Chinese pizza restaurant.
This was all our fault, as we were no longer using the post office as much as we should. And as a “service” to all the old fools who have not mastered the art of sending packages and letters and voting forms via their smart phones, the village had found this nifty solution.
It is presented as a very radical improvement as the grocery store opens at 7 am seven days a week. The spin is that WE, the ancient ones, are the lucky ducks. Not only can we still pay our bills, get some cash, and send thoughtful gifts, in the dark of morning but we can do our shopping as well! If we plan this right, by 8 am we can be back at home and have the whole day in front of us.
Along with the flyer, there was also a very nasty speeding ticket. How this could have occurred in a construction site is a complete mystery to me. So, I am looking forward to the opening of the new grocery-enhanced post office. I will drive to it slowly and carefully and never have to race into town again.
