July 25th, 2018

The above is evidence of how very wrong I can be.  Oh yes, I am well aware of my flaws.  When I think about the correct to incorrect ratio of predictions that I have made in my life, I can say with tremendous certainty that the incorrect answers wins handily.  I am not a good prognosticator.  Perhaps I should have gone into meteorology.  

Before we left on our birthday week trip, Tim put a hold on our mail and both newspapers.  It's a smart thing to do.  Few things are a better indication of an empty house than a driveway littered with newspapers.  And while the island is about as far from a hotbed of criminal activity as a person can get, I think it's always a good idea to not tempt fate.  So we got our last mail and  newspaper delivery the day before we left and trusted that we would receive the entire bundle of mail and newspapers that arrived during our absence the day after our return as Tim requested.  Perfect.

So off we went, had our fabulous birthday week, returned on a Sunday and fully expected to find on Monday morning our big happy pile of newspapers - the full week away's worth - and a tidy bundle of mail.  The weeks worth of mail showed up in the mailbox that afternoon, banded and with the printout of our hold request tucked in exactly as we'd hoped.  Thank you Post Office.

We arrived to find that the local newspaper did not hold back the papers but a kind neighbor tossed them into our courtyard where they could not be seen from the road.  Thank you kind neighbor :)  The local paper is only bi-weekly so there were only two papers delivered in our absence, so it was really not a big deal that they didn't withhold them (especially thanks to the forethought of the kind neighbor).  I opened them and devoured them immediately.

But, there was no daily newspaper at the end of the driveway on Monday morning.  Not the bundle of the entire week away, not even the one paper that absolutely should have been delivered that day. Dang!  Well perhaps they will resume normal delivery the next day. Perhaps there was some sort of misunderstanding on their part.  

But nope.  Tuesday morning rose bright and shiny with no daily newspaper.  (sigh)  By the time I realized that no paper had been delivered Tim was already on a plane headed for a week's business in California.  Doubledang!  I really missed reading paper.  As I've already established in another post (somewhere) I am kind of a newspaper addict.  Without my daily newspaper, the entire day just feels wrong.  

I went online and tried to figure out how to contact them but since Tim pays the bills online I have no idea what our account number is and as it turns out, they need that information to process my request, my attempt at contact got me no place. Is there such a thing as a tripledang?

Wednesday the local paper arrived and I devoured it. I read it very slowly to make it last.  I even read the ads (which I usually skip) and the obituaries.  Thursday, no newspaper still.  When Friday rolled around with an empty driveway, I found myself seriously considering re-reading the Wednesday local paper.  I thought about just buying a copy of the daily news but it's there is a principle at stake here. We already paid for these papers and they should be at my house!  I teetered on that decision for quite some time.  Saturday the latest issue of the local news was delivered and I did my happydance!  I read it both on Saturday and again on Sunday wisely assuming that the big fat glorious Sunday newspaper would not arrive.  This time I was correct.  It did not.

Tim contacted the newspaper on Monday and explained the situation. They were surprised that service had not resumed and promised that beginning Tuesday, regular daily delivery would be in place.  Tim asked about the papers we did not receive which we should have (at this point two weeks worth!) and, just as a matter of fact, we have already paid for.  They hemmed and hawed and finally admitted that we would probably not get those.  Sigh.  Ok. Fine.  Just get us back on track please.

When Tim told me what they said he added that they were going to try to cobble together as many of the missing papers as possible for us. I snorted dismissively and said, "Suuure they are. I'm quite certain that they are scurrying around hard at work on that one" in an unnecessarily snotty tone. (it's unusual but I can be a real pill sometimes)  And then I made the  BOLD  Sam prediction that the newspaper people would not even try to find the missing papers and we would just have to learn to live with a big old gap in our knowledge base.  And further while I was annoyed about it, I would learn to live with it and be begrudgingly satisfied just to have daily delivery again. Humph!  (what a brat  !)

Tuesday morning I walked to the end of the driveway hoping to find that Tuesdays newspaper awaited us and found this lovely big fat juicy bundle of newspapers in a bag that says, "Hope you had a nice vacation.  Glad you are back!"  in big read letters across the top.  I was so excited, I fairly danced my way back into the house!  "Look what we have!"  I called out!  Every single solitary missing newspaper was in the bundle! I was not just wrong, I was wrongity wrong. I was so completely totally entirely wrong!  And I am delighted to say so.  Somebody actually did scurry around finding every single missing newspaper for us!  Wow!  Thank you newspaper people!

It's going to take me some time to catch up but I have them all in order from the furthest day out to the most current day and I am ready to roll.  So here is my most current and deliriously wonderfully wordy project before me:

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Rarely have I been so happy to be so wrong!  Let the reading begin!