Dad Mails A Letter

Dad mails a letter at 8am

He doesn’t need to mail a letter then

He doesn’t need to do anything then

Dad’s retired

Dad’s been retired

For twelve years

And 8am is a busy time

To be on the road

To be getting in the way of people

Who are not retired

And who need to get to work

And might feel frustrated

Driving behind a seventy-seven year-old man

Who gets very agitated

For the smallest of reasons

Which means he shows up

At the post office

At 8am

Or rather

Before 8am

Actually--well before 8am

But still during rush hour

With people on their way to work

Or to drop their kids off at school

He gets to the post office

Before they’re open

And he gets very angry

That they’re not open yet

Even though--Why would they be open?

They have a time at which they’re open

Try to argue with Dad about this

I have

My sister has

My brother has

But then he gets angry

That we’re arguing with him

Not because he disagrees with us

But because he can’t come up

With a logical answer for the question--

Dad, why do you need to mail a letter

On or around 8am

And why do you think the post office

Should open early

Just for you

Just for you and your one letter?

He doesn’t like it

When we talk this way

And then our Mom gets upset with us

For getting him upset

And then everybody’s upset

And we just drop the whole thing

We offer to take all his mail

We offer to remove the chore

Of going to the post office--

A chore he HATED

When we were younger

--We offer to take that chore from him

And take it on ourselves

But he won’t hear of it

The letter he’s sending?

It’s not a letter

It’s payment for a bill

A bill you can pay online

That we are happy to pay for

To go online and pay for

So he won’t have to get up early

And get in the car

And drive through morning traffic

And get to the post office

And harass the poor post office workers about

But Dad won’t hear of it

He is going to that post office

And he is going to mail that letter

And he is going to make life harder

For a lot of other people

In the process

And his argument is that

If anybody else tries to do it for him

Then he’s a burden

When really

He wouldn’t be a burden

But right now he is

Because our father has become

That pain-in-the-ass old person

That he used to hate

When he was driving us around

When we were kids

He’s the guy on the road

Going ten miles an hour

When everyone else

Is fifteen minutes late

And the speed limit is thirty-five

He’s the one our father used to curse at

And our Mom would say

That’s going to be us someday

And he’d yell towards the backseat--

Kids, if that’s ever me

Take me out back and shoot me

And now…

Here we are

He used to say how much

He was going to love

Not having to go to work

Not having to get up early

Having nothing to do all day

But work in the yard

And golf

And watch tv

And he did love all that

...For the first year

Then I guess…

I don’t know

Dad mails a letter at 8am

And then after he mails the letter?

He goes home

He watches tv

He works in the yard

He doesn’t do much of anything

And Mom says--

Don’t worry about him

Mailing that letter

Worry about when he gets home

And has nothing else

To do with himself

That’s when I worry about him,

She says

Talking quietly

Because he’s down the hall

Trying to take a nap

In the bedroom

That’s when I really

Start to worry