Coronapocalypse quarantine week 6. (Your mail carrier knows you.)

Today, I was forced out of quarantine by some errands that needed to be run, so that was interesting. Remember when leaving your house wasn’t interesting? Wasn’t a cause for reflection? Mask, check. Gloves, check. Hand sanitizer, check.

I think even the least social of us are getting a little antsy for in-person human interaction. I actually chatted with our mail carrier for about five minutes on the driveway this afternoon when I got back. He’s an obvious introvert, as well, so I was surprised when he said some additional words after he greeted me as I was getting out of the car.

We exchanged hellos, as usual, and then he asked, “What branch were you in?” It took me a second to process his question, and then I realized that he must’ve put something from the V.A. in the mailbox. It turns out that he did… and that he’s also an army veteran who served in the Gulf War. I never would’ve known!

I mean, I don’t know whether he would’ve struck up a conversation were we not in the middle of a pandemic. He’s probably long since deduced that I’m a veteran, since I receive a significant volume of mail from the V.A., but today, he was inclined to ask about it. I think that his interest is a by-product of social distancing. He misses social interaction.

It was nice.

It got me thinking, though, about how our mail carriers can actually know stuff about us based on the mail we receive.

Things our mail carrier knows/could know about me (were he to pay attention): where I bank, where I went to college, where I’ve donated money; that I’m a veteran, and that I’m a member of both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars; that I’m passionate about animal rights; that I have family in Hawaii; that the Asian part of my ethnicity is Japanese; that I’m a writer; that I’m over 50; that I’m darkly inclined subculture-wise; that I have an exotic pet, and also at least one other pet (reptiles are considered to be exotic, so we go to two different vets, one of them exotic-specific); that I have or have had membership at the Desert Botanical Gardens; which hospital E.R. I visited last summer; where I get my glasses; where I go for dental work; and the brands of all of my kitchen appliances. That’s all that comes to mind at the moment. I’m sure there’s more.

What does your mail carrier know about you, or could know about you were they to pay attention? They could really know you, and maybe now, they want to. I love that social distancing is encouraging us to interact… or maybe it’s just the fact that we’re all navigating this colossal, unprecedented turn of events together, and we’re feeling that energetic connection. Whatever the case, before the virus, the mail carrier said “hi” and kept walking, and so did I.

I tried to get a selfie with Nenette yesterday. It didn’t work. All this picture shows is her reticence and my subsequent disappointment:

::le sigh::

And all this picture shows is that I didn’t do a good job cutting my hair. Granted, it’s not styled, but still. I don’t regret it, though. I love the (bottom) part that I fixed: