HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED THE OTHER DAY

It’s late morning when I see the Fed Ex white pickup truck go down the dirt road, slow up, look in, see under the tall tamarack tree my chalkboard quote with Jimmy Hoffa, and he probably thinks about that a moment. Keeps going. Comes back, slows down again, I wait for him to sum up the right place. We don't use a road # on the house because we like being in the woods, hidden, not some suburbia. So we help people when they are looking for us. He gets out of the truck. "Who you lookin' for?" Looks down at his clipboard, "Susan Arnold?" He appears hopeful. "You found her." He snaps up, "Terrific!" On his shoulder he brings my Mexican tiles. I know they're the tiles. We've been waiting weeks and they never returned our query for a tracking number. Asked 3 times. No answer 3 times. Let's hope they were busy buffing our ceramic tiles instead, down there in old dusty Mexico.

Sets it down. I sign. I then say, "I'm not Susan Arnold, but you've brought me work to do." He looks at me, "I hope that's okay?" I smile, "Couldn't be better." Another "Terrific" from him. Off he goes, happy, did his job. Then he abruptly stops and turns and asks, "Last name?" like he's just recalled his business code of ethics. I say, "Arnold". He's happy again and strides off. I almost said, "Bond. James Bond."

Ah, the box looks like shit. Are the tiles all busted inside? $80 down the drain?

I open the box. Still no breakfast in me and past noon. Inside each tile, 100 of them, are protected in a beautiful styro-wrapping. Couldn't look nicer. I unwrap one bunch and unfold 8 tiles, all shiny and no cracks. Let's hope the bottom of the box looks just the same. I want to save the way it looks for Sweetheart to have a look when she gets home from town so I won't dig deeper. Whoever in Mexico wrapped it up, did as well as I do in Vermont with every book order out of our bookshop. And occasionally I ship out orders in an old lousy box, too.

In his senior year of high school Bob Arnold was thoroughly flunking Algebra II and Chemistry and if memory serves French II. But he won the English Dept. award for excellence. Still, no college wanted him and he didn’t want them. Off to the woods, youngman.