Strong Verbs Are Just Better

Partly for tree_and_leaf, who likes to see where her flisties live, and partly Just Because:

( Marrickville )

( Also, plants! )

I just received a parcel. At 8.30 at night. Hand-delivered by the contracted parcel-deliverers of Australia Post.

To made the whole situation weirder, it was in a postal sack which could only be opened with a blade, and in that sack was a cardboard box very securely taped up with masking tape, and in that cardboard box was a book wrapped up in butcher's paper.

I have unwrapped the book, and it appears to be a perfectly ordinary - if hard to get hold of - cookbook. After all that, I was kind of hoping for magical properties of some sort.

SOMEONE IS SENDING INFLAMMATORY WRIT BY AUSTRALIA POST.

I know this, because, on the way back from seeing Avenue Q (it was good), sjazzmreow noticed that the post box on the corner was smoking gently. It turned out to be unusually hot to the touch, so, after some consternation (Sjazz: should we call someone? Me: but who? Sjazz: *examines box* there's no number on here! K: We could call triple 0. Sjazz: It's not an emergency... Me: we could call uni security and ask what they think?), we went into Gould's and the strange old man called Newtown police.

By the time we got back out, the box was smoking like a chimney stack, and had attracted a couple in evening dress and some staff from a nearby restaurant. The couple turned out to be plain-clothes cops, and I rather embarrassed myself by insisting they weren't, because I'd just got off the phone to the cops. Then someone pointed out that the lady had guns.

A waitress poured an icebucket of water in the box, to no avail. The policeman in the nice suit disappeared off with her, and reappeared with a jug of water and a bucket and a pile of napkins. Much fuss was made about the suited fellow throwing his jug into the postbox, but mostly it just splashed off the mail-chute door and did no good.

Then two uniformed police turned up.

A passerby tried to hit on Sjazz, and K scared him off. Then the firetruck showedup, and four firemen spent ten minutes getting a hose into the postbox and thoroughly dousing the contents.

After a while we gave up and went home. Many people are going to be upset with Australia post when their mail either a) disappears or b) turns up in one of those Damaged Mail bags covered in grey-brown sludge. We would rather like to see the postman's face when he (or, of course, she) opens the postbox on Monday morning and finds charred soggy debris.

Interfering with Her Majesty's Australian Mail, kids. It's a serious offence.