Delivering the Mail

So for any of you who haven't had the personal experience of becoming a mailman, it is exhilarating, particularly when you're sneaking around at night like McCreepy....hehe! Ok, let's start from the beginning. When I resigned my teaching position to stay home with Bug, I thought I'd make some extra cash tutoring. I can charge a pretty decent amount per hour--the going rate--and still get to do what I love during her naps, work with kiddies. I was pumped. I'd make just as much as I would've working part-time with a fraction of the hours. I had connections in a bunch of schools in this area, so I had teachers on my side to get the word out. This was an awesome business in the making.

Except, it wasn't!! Fall came and went, and I barely got a call. I knew teachers were giving my name out to any interested parents, but I wasn't getting many calls and the ones I was getting ended up falling through. It didn't help that I am 10-15 minutes away from the schools I taught in---why would parents drive to my house after school when they can get someone IN the school??? I joined homeschooling Yahoo chat groups to offer my services to them. I got nothing! I emailed principals to see if I could drop some flyers off. Most didn't respond, the ones who knew me allowed me to do so, but again...the schools were farther away. So yeah, the tutoring thing wasn't happening. I knew God wanted me to stay home, so I still trusted Him that something would work out.

At the start of the second semester and the new year, I got motivated again. This time, I was going to do some advertising in MY area. Unfortunately, I didn't know many teachers in the schools RIGHT near my house, but the couple I did got a lovely email begging nonchalantly asking them to refer me if a parent asked about a tutor. Then I thought I would go ahead and make a postcard from vistaprint.com. If you haven't been there, they do some great stuff for pretty stinkin' cheap. That's where we made our birth announcements for like 1/2 the price that some friends paid. Anyway, made my postcards and googled for a coupon. Wouldn't you know it, I found one which cut the prices of the postcard packages in 1/2. LOVE GOOGLE!! My husband was amazed by my skills, and I was estatic to get 250 color postcards for like $25 or something.

They arrived within a week and you would've thought it was Christmas by my response to getting them. Unfortunately, that night, Darling Dearest didn't get home until 7pm. So we couldn't play mailman that night. Last night, he got home at his normal time (around 6:30). We fought with the Bug over food calmly fed our precious daughter, packed her up, and hit the road. We had two neighborhoods in particular that we wanted to hit up with postcards---both have beautiful and expensive homes. Surely, they'd be the ones to have some extra cash in this tough economy...maybe??

Hubby had it all planned out. I would drive since his arm span is longer. FINE BY ME!! So into the first neighborhood we creeped...me driving, Bug chillin in the back, and Hubby with his arm out the window ready to hit up the mailboxes. We were just hoping no one called the cops on the creepy SUV sneaking up and down the streets of the neighborhood, awfully close to the houses. At first, I was pulling up too far away and Darling Dearest yelled at me kindly instructed me concerning my driving. Well, I didn't wanna bust our car, pardon me!! Then, I wasn't going fash enough. He wanted me to smoothly roll up and out of there with just enough time for him to get the postcard in. Well, I didn't wanna snap his arm off. Pardon me, AGAIN! When I started moving faster, it was too fast!! The whole thing was actually pretty funny because we started off in a good and playful mood about everything (started off being the key words).

We finally got into a "GO" system. I wouldn't pull off until he said GO. Every now and again someone was walking their dog or taking out the garbage, so we had to ABORT MISSION ASAP and head back to that street. Let me tell you, some of these neighborhood set-ups are confusing. It was all I could do to remember where we had been...and most of the time we had to do a mailbox-check to see if we'd been up that street or down that side. Ugh! Pain in the boot-AY! Not to mention, at some point in there Bug started to SCREAM! How could I be passing out tutoring flyers telling people to trust me with their child when I have mine screaming her head off in the back seat??? So I pulled over in front of an empty house for sale, got in the back, and whipped out a boob. After a slight interupption, we were on our way again. We were getting to the point where we had passed out close to 200 postcards and were ready to head to the next neighborhood before getting busted in this one. At our last house, someone was walking out the door as we put the card in the mailbox. Hubby was DONE! You would've thought we were smuggling drugs by how "busted" he reacted. hehe! So off we went to the next neighborhood.

Prior to getting there, we had a quick pull through Mickey D's for some energy to finish the mission. We only had 60 cards to get out in the next neighborhood and were mentally OVER IT! This was the point where the playful/fun attitude flew out the window. These mailboxes were different than the others. Harder to open? Close? I don't know....but all I know is, I wasn't doing it right. I was going too fast or not up far enough, close enough...you name it. Not to mention, I was trying to eat my chicken selects while creeping through the neighborhood in a totally stalkerish way. This was HARD work. I told Hubby I may drop him off and he responded that he'd take the postcards with him. heheh! ANYWHO....we made it through the last 60 and still loved each other at the end of it. I love that Darling Dearest is the kind of guy who would do this with me and for me without even thinking to complain about it. I told him it was an investment in our family business. To which he responded about how we were TOOT-ers! "Yep, that's something I do well!" Yes, hubby---it is. Thanks for turning this whole thing into a joke about your ridiculously smelly pasttime. :-) And you all wonder why I love him so much. The whole process took an hour and a half, and that includes feeding time for us and her. Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

If I don't get any calls out of this, I just may cry inconsolably like a 2 month old infant!! But hey, we had a pretty comical experience out of it and at it's worse, it was $25 spent on a night on the town with my family (or the closest thing to a night on the town that I've had in about a year). Totally bummed I didn't get any pics of our adventure. Maybe we'll go out tonight and pose for some feux-pics of this experience. Here's for hoping I get some calls!

What are some of the most ridiculous or embarrassing things you've done for a job??