I have a love/hate relationship with my UPS man. It's a long one, paved with box dust and tears. He can be so sweet, but then the abuse...the product I don't want...
On slow days I'm over-joyed to see him with his mountain of boxes containing magazines, books, and paperwork. We smile and joke as he stacks them on the counter. I ask him about the weather, he asks me about work. The smiles are bright, the laughter easy. On those days it doesn't matter if each box is filled with books I did not order, or just returned, I love that he has brought me something to do.
He is so easy to love.
Lately, though, he comes during peak hours with boxes filled with crap I don't have room for and will never sell: magazines with a $1.89 price point, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, yet another copy of Naked (I have 50 already, and that's Sedaris's backlist people!). He refuses my cries to take them back, he ignores my curses and loud musings about whether his parents ever married. He's a cold, evil man who leaves me with a pile of junk that contains not one Advanced Reader Copy (ARC), or book I've been waiting to read.
I hate him, just hate him. I hope he never returns.
But later he comes back looking repentant with one lone envelope in his hand (that had become buried on the bottom of his cart and therefore escaped detection), one lone envelope sans invoice.
An ARC. Just for me.
And I love him, just love him. I call him my UPS Sugar Daddy. I offer to get him water. We laugh, all animosity gone. How could it have gone wrong in the first place? I have no idea either, but it will never happen again!
I'm really not sure how his wife feels about our relationship. I know I'm not his only stop. But I don't ask questions, and he doesn't ask me about my relationships with the FedEx Air and Ground guys. It's an open relationship.
I wonder what he'll bring me today.
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