Old People Life Hack #1: Rural Mailbox Helper

 So this is something I've been thinking about a lot:  Getting Old.  Yeah, major nuisance and when you combine that with Long Covid.....well, there just are no words adequate to describe that experience.  And, yes, I have had Long Covid for an endless year.  The good news is that I can't recall most of 2020 because I was either very busy breathing or very busy sleeping 16 hours a day.  Just living has been a full-time job.

Before I digress further let me say that actually Long Covid assisted in the formulation of this particular idea because, thanks to the whole "not being able to breathe" thing, I can no longer walk down my driveway to get the mail.  To be fair, it is a lengthy driveway and it's normally a pleasant five minute walk to and fro.  

This is not my actual mailbox but you get the idea.....

Now, ridiculously, I have to drive the car to pick up the mail.  And therein lies the problem:  since I have to drive to the mailbox, I also don't have the strength to get in and out of the car to fetch the mail so I pull right up to the box.  It's a big box.  When the mail carrier chucks the post in there, it slides all the way to the back and I can't reach it from the car window.  Dammit.

One day when I was sitting at my desk mulling this frustrating problem, my eyes happened to light on another annoyance that was sitting right there in the utensil mug:  a telescoping back scratcher.  Man, I hate that thing.  Every time I use it to scratch my back, it just folds back up again.  Useless.  But it occurred to me that it was folding up because I was pushing it down.  Now if it was being used to pull up, it would stay open.  

Major lightbulb moment.  I took the back scratcher to the car next time I went to pick up the mail.  Letters at the back of the box?  No problem.  I extend the back scratcher, pull the mail forward, and (as the old expression goes) Bob's your uncle:  I've got mail!

You know, I used to have a neighbor who was proud of being minimalist but she never had what she needed at hand when she needed it so she'd come to my house where *magically* I'd have just the right thing.  She'd always ask how it was that I had "everything" and I'd tell her the same thing each time:  I don't have everything; I just don't throw everything out because sometimes junk comes in handy.  If I had thrown out that wretched back scratcher after the times it annoyed me, I wouldn't have had the solution to the problem of getting the mail out of the back of the box.

Silly solution?  Yeah.  But who cares?  It works!

Life is good (especially when you keep extra stuff).