There is no mail box in front of my house. Or any of the other houses on my street. Letters arrive to a cubicle around the corner, that we rent every year at the post office. Which means that collecting your bills and Christmas cards is a social event, sometimes leading to fifteen minute conversations in the parking lot. It also implies that you have to actually wear clothes, as opposed to the jammie dash I pulled off on my cul-de-sac in California. 

A friend has been experiencing complications in this should-be-simple process. Her son moved out, giving the appropriate forwarding information to the postmaster. But being overly zealous, or perhaps just confused, the computers have elected to also forward my friend's mail. She who has not moved in twenty years. Then, since it was fun, the invisible and unnamed robots have begun messing with her other adult son's mail. Having the same last name and all. 

As a result her box is empty. Has been for three days. And much as one would like to imagine that the power company has decided to stop charging for electricity, a lack of paper evidence does not equate with free juice.

I offered to give her some of my mail. The donation pleas even, with letterheads from my children's alma maters. But for some reason she is partial to envelopes with her name on them. So be it.

When we send messages to one another, we can assume that since they left our lips, or perhaps just our ruminating brain, that they were delivered. Successfully. But it occurs to me that this is not always true.