phil jacobsen

The Check is in the Mail

A lot of people want their check. That’s what they say when I stick their mail in the box, “Did you bring me a check?” The people who aren’t looking for a check say, “Don’t give me any bills.” And the people who don’t care about the bills on a cold day say, “It sure is cold today.” In the summertime they say, “You’re sweating. You look hot today.” And when it’s raining they say, “You sure are wet today.”

As a mailman it seems that society as whole has lost their ability to communicate. Hearing the same questions from different houses all day long, I wonder how people interact with the people in their own homes. From what I can tell all people want to talk about is the mail or the weather. Then again, I suppose a lot can get accomplished simply by saying, “You look hot today” followed by “You sure are wet today.”

Even though these questions are simply the small talk that really means, “Please get off my porch, there is one guy, Mr. Sorensen, who really seems to think—every day—that I have a check for him.

Mr. Sorensen is more reliable than a mailman. It doesn’t matter the weather, he is waiting outside—rain, sleet or snow—for me. He knows his regular carrier shows up to his house between 11 or 11:30 each and every day. This means Mr. Sorensen sits outside from 10:30 a.m. until the mail arrives. He’s mostly deaf and semi-blind, and hates it when I deliver his mail. I get to his house late every time I deliver this route.

“You’re late,” he says. “The regular carrier gets to my house no later than 11:30 every day. I come out and wait for him starting at 10:30 just in case he’s early. He’s never early, but he’s certainly never this late.”

He yells, but doesn’t know he’s yelling and then he says, “DO YOU HAVE MY CHECK?”

He can’t read the envelopes, so I tell him that K-mart has a sale, Chase Bank wants him to sign up for a credit card and AARP wants to know if he’s still alive.

“SO. NO CHECK TODAY?”

“Nope.”

“WHAT?”

“SORRY, NOT TODAY MR. SORENSEN.”

He lets me know he hopes the regular mailman is delivering his mail tomorrow and then he turns and goes into his house. He never says thanks or have a good day, but then again, I never have a check for him, so I don’t blame him.

Today, since I knew the routine, when I got to the street where Mr. Sorensen lives, I sat in my truck and rifled through the mail. When I got to his mail, sandwiched in between a car advertisement and a late arriving Christmas card from a relative who addressed the envelope to “Great Grandpa” there was something else.

I wanted to skip the four houses on the street before his house and run straight to Mr. Sorensen’s. Even though it was 12:30 p.m. and I knew I was going to get yelled at for being late, I could not wait to get to Great Grandpa Sorensen’s house.

At his gate I was met by a younger yet still older gentleman who said, “My dad passed away last night.”

I had a check.