Last evening my husband and I arrived home to discover a notice had been shoved through our mail slot advising us that we had a box waiting for us at the village post office. Such excitement! Such joy! I am, of course, talking only about my reaction. My husband took the impending arrival of the box of goodies from “home” in stride. Husbands can be slightly aggravating that way, I have found. A box full of treasures has arrived a full five days before the post office in the US estimated it would, and all he can say is, “They always do come more quickly from that direction.”

The thing is, he knows what is in the box. So do I, for that matter. For him, sensible man that he is, that means there is no surprise or mystery about this package waiting for us at the post office, and therefore no glamour or excitement. When it comes he will be happy, but in the meantime there is no reason to get all worked up about it. We were expecting it. It has arrived safely. Well done. Now what’s for dinner? I, on the other hand, would like to spend several minutes at least discussing the box and the contents all over again, talking about how exciting it will be to open it, speculating again on how much my mother and step-dad must have paid to ship it here (a lot, I’m sure), and in general building myself up into such a state of anticipation as to be nearly impossible to live with. Continue reading →