12/6/10

Nest of Junk Mail.

Our mailman is a giant pain in my ass. For some reason, he can't just place our mail gently in our gigantic, cavernous rural mailbox. He has to wind up like a major league pitcher and throw it in. This means I can't pull up to the mailbox in my car and grab the mail, because I don't have the arms of Mr. Fantastic. All my mail is cowering against the back wall of the box like it's afraid of light. I have to get out of my car, which makes me cranky, especially if it's raining or snowing.

This is the same mailman who is so lazy he won't drive up to the house to leave an over-sized package on the porch. I realize I'm calling him lazy when I don't even want to get out of my car to get the mail, but he's a special case. Instead of putting the package on the porch, he'll open the mailbox, balance the package on the open door, and wrap a rubber band around it. Doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing -- I'll just find it there when I get home. He actually left boxes in the snowbank last year because the plow had gone by and blocked our mailbox with snow. He also somehow manages to get actual important mail stuck inside the mail order catalogs. I think he does it on purpose because we get too many boxes that make him have to walk to the porch. It's no wonder the post office is hemorrhaging money.

This time of year, we get about 10 pounds of mail-order catalogs every day. I have no idea why these companies are continuing to do this. I think they should figure out which households have internet connections, and then just stop sending direct mail there. I suppose they keep doing it because they pick up a lot of bathroom browsers.

As I was shaking out our daily load of catalogs, looking for incidental things like bills that have to be paid on time, I stumbled on this picture:


A nest of nativity, if you will. In the second I glanced at it I noticed that something seemed off to me. It's not that they're all the shape of bowling pins, although that's part of it. I think it's that the order is wrong. First, everybody piles in Donkey Joseph. That has to be uncomfortable. And baby Jesus should be in Mary, not two levels down, sitting inside of a shepherd that looks like Tom Welling, if Tom Welling could grow a beard. The wise man wearing the football helmet and holding the Scooby Doo lunchbox has to hold Tom and the baby Jesus, and then jump inside Mary, and that's just no good for anyone.

My considered opinion: The Nativity scene is not optimal for interpretation via Nesting.

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:12 PM

    Hmmm... inspires a bit of new recreational blasphemy: Jesus H. Nesting Doll Christ. [crouching, looking for lightning bolt]

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  2. I have similar issues with my mail delivery. We have a big communal box down at the end of the street, and each house has its own little compartment. Those are almost exactly the same inside dimensions as the 12x14x3 Priority Mail flat rate box. There might be 1/8" clearance on either side. My carrier opens the back of the communal box, and insists on shoving these flat rate boxes, and all the frelling catalogs in together. Once I open the little door, I have to use my car keys to punch a hole in the box big enough to drag it out, which then shreds half the catalogs, and tears open the envelopes of the bills and bank statements. I have mentioned this to my alternate carrier on several occasions - SHE actually drives up the street and leaves those boxes on my front porch. But she is the alternate, and apparently cannot pass along messages to the regular carrier. Dammit.

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  3. Love the nesting dolls!

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  4. I believe those are called matryoshka. I call them freakishly weird.

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  5. This is why I don't understand religion.

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  6. Even in the Nesting version, Joseph doesn't get to be inside Mary.

    That's BS!

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  7. Correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't baby Jesus go inside Mary?

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  8. kristina11:18 AM

    Not only do we have a lazy mail carrier, he/she apparently needs glasses:

    At our rural "community" mailbox, the carrier does not seem to be able to put packages in the "extra" boxes made for packages (they put the package in one of those and then leave the key to it in your box), which means he/she leaves a card you have to take to the actual post office by 5pm within a few days of receipt of said card, or the package is returned (I do not get home until almost 6 anyway) - and it's not like they have to carry it, they have a truck they drive right up to the set of 18 boxes!

    Additionally, he/she is also unable to read and sort the mail correctly - I constantly receive mail for 1059 MyStreet, when my address is 1056 MyStreet. How flippin' stupid are you, buddy?!

    @daisyfae: that made me laugh out loud!

    @Ed: that made me snicker and try not to picture Joseph entering Mary...

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  9. daisy, I'm using that.

    Buck, that's the EXACT reason we bought this ridiculously huge mailbox to begin with. I was tired of needing the jaws of life to get my mail out of the box.

    Jen, you are right. On both counts.

    Brutalism, It doesn't make any sense to me either.

    Ed, he never did anyway, from what I gather.

    Badass, my point exactly. Tom Welling be damned.

    Kristina, I seem to have touched a nerve. Can a person go postal by the transitive property?

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  10. I'm sorry but all of these mailbox schenanigans have made me want to go watch Funny Farm with Chevy Chase.

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  11. "I suppose they keep doing it because they pick up a lot of bathroom browsers. "

    BAHAHAHAHA!!

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  12. I've never understood the whole nesting doll thing. What's the point? Unless maybe you hide something in the smallest one for a kid to find or something.

    I do find the inherent misogyny a bit off-putting. I mean, aside from showing either severe gullibility or a remarkable tolerance for his spouse's philandering (unless maybe they were swingers?), the dude didn't really do anything. He just pulled his donkey (euphemism, anyone?) around the desert for a while. Yet, he gets top billing in the nesting dolls. What a load.

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  13. Faegan you are so right. Joseph doesn't deserve top billing.

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  14. I used to have a mailbox/cubby that was maybe 4 inches wide by 12 inches tall, and deep enough to fold a magazine in half and stuff it in (and of course rip the cover off in the process). We had one of the nice mailpeople who would come and throw the over-sized stuff on the porch, but then either he/she got lazy or fired.. I had one of those fancy 3-D ultrasounds done when I was pregnant with my daughter, and had to have the disk with the images on it mailed to me because her next appointment was coming in and it wasn't done in time... So when it finally does arrive, the new mailbeast decides to, instead of tossing it on my front porch, crack the disk in half to make it fit! I thought maybe this was something they taught mailpeople NOT to do, but I guess I was wrong!!

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  15. Anonymous9:32 AM

    Oh, my, god! I am sitting at work at 8:20 AM Laughing so hard that my boss is making stay away motions with one hand while he dials the number for the men in white coats with the other! Your blog should come with a warning label "Do not read at work, unless you like the hugging sensation of the jacket with lots of shiny buckles! GREAT STUFF!

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  16. I remember seeing those nesting dolls in my daughter's Russian class....

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