I used to work with Garrett at Amazon, now he works at the post office, sometimes delivering my mail.
This afternoon I was hauling a box of books out of the trunk of my car, when he appeared next to a postal service van that was parked in front of me.
“Hi Garrett. How are you doing?”
“Good, How are you?”
“Good.”
“You have to park all the way down here?” he asked me.
“Sometimes. But, it’s only a block away.”
“Yeah, . . . still.” He started to climb into the van.
“Well, I’ll see you later,” I said.
I carried the box up the street and Garrett pulled out and drove away. He was climbing out of the van which was parked outside my building when I walked up.
Before I could make a joke (eg: “Maybe sooner than later”), he said, “I noticed that you didn’t order Harry Potter.”
“No. I haven’t read any of those. Did you order one?”
“Yes.”
I peeked in the back window of the van. There were several tubs of mail laid out inside and almost half of their capacity seemed to be taken up with boxes from Amazon, custom-printed with the title of the new Harry Potter book on the outside.
(o/t) Maria over at alembic is wondering what to do with all her used books… hmmm, she said to herself; “I really ought to introduce these two to each other — a writer and a writer, a reader and a bookseller,” then she went and filled up her coffee cup again, the thought escaping gravity, effortlessly, gigo.
***
re: the confession that you have never read any of the Potter books — I’ll deal with you later, young man.