Just Another Average Tuesday

The dream begins at work. Because apparently my subconscious has run out of original ideas and has started clocking in for the early shift instead. I’m standing in the depot, bleary-eyed, staring at the duty board when I see the worst possible combination. My name. Mike’s name. Together. My heart sinks so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t leave a postmark in the concrete. Mike’s nice enough, providing your tolerance for flatulence is unusually high and you still find Year Eight banter intellectually stimulating. He recently left Royal Mail. We even wished him well. I was rather hoping things would stay that way. Apparently the universe had other plans. For the last half hour we’ve been trying to understand Royal Mail’s latest “improvement” to the scanning system. Royal Mail has an extraordinary gift for taking something that works perfectly well and replacing it with something that requires twice the effort, three training courses, and a support helpline that never seems to answer. Every parcel now appears to require the sort of mathematical equation that once had me staring at my GCSE paper, wondering whether collapsing dramatically onto the desk might be my best option. Meanwhile, Mike has developed the uncanny ability to materialise over my shoulder every thirty seconds. “Hurry up.” “I’m trying.” “It isn’t difficult.” “Well, it’s doing a remarkably convincing impression of it.” Every time I finally figure out one screen, another appears. Tap this. Confirm that. Scan again. Rotate the parcel. Enter your bank details. By the time we’ve finished, every other postie has long since escaped, while we’re still standing there being psychologically assaulted by algebra. Eventually, we set off. Or so I think. Because that’s when the real nightmare begins. Not the dream. The customers. ⸻ The first one appears before I’ve even reached the first gate. They always do. I swear they can smell us. Perhaps there’s some dormant gene buried somewhere in British DNA that activates the moment a postie enters a five-mile radius. Whatever it is, they emerge with terrifying precision. One minute there’s nobody there. The next… …a man peels himself out of a hedge like he’s been lying in wait since dawn. “Got anything for number ninety-two?” Now, what I want to say is: Probably. But if you wait five bloody minutes I’ll be standing outside number ninety-two and we can both find out together. Instead, I sigh, lower the bundle, and begin dismantling half my walk in search of one very specific address. Three catalogues. Two bills. A takeaway menu. Somebody’s hospital appointment. An alarming number of speeding tickets. Ah. Number ninety-two. Exactly where it would have been if you’d exercised the almost superhuman restraint of waiting another five minutes. ⸻ Further along, someone spots the trolley. Every. Single. Time. You can practically see the thought forming. They’re going to say it. I know they’re going to say it. They know I know they’re going to say it. “They should put a motor on that thing.” I laugh politely. Like this is the first time I’ve ever heard it. Like there isn’t a tiny, exhausted part of my brain quietly whispering: 6,842. Yes. They absolutely should. Honestly, I’d settle for a small sail and a favourable wind. But if you’d like to write to Royal Mail and suggest it, I’d happily deliver the letter myself. ⸻ A little later someone smiles knowingly. “Bet you get your steps in.” Again. Always the bloody steps. By this point I’ve walked approximately the width of Luxembourg. But yes. Let’s discuss my Fitbit. ⸻ Then comes my personal favourite. You knock. You wait. Nothing. So you fill out the “Sorry we missed you” card. The precise moment your pen touches the paper… …the door flies open. “I was just coming,” they say. Of course they were. Nothing summons a British homeowner faster than the sound of a postie giving up. ⸻ A woman answers the door for a parcel. “What’s in it?” she asks. For a moment I wonder whether everyone else attended a Royal Mail training course called The Contents of Other People’s Parcels: An Introduction. Unfortunately, I must have missed that module. “No idea.” She looks genuinely crestfallen, as though I’ve failed the practical exam. Someone else accepts a letter. “It’s not a bill, is it?” Ah. The joke. Passed lovingly from generation to generation like a treasured family heirloom. I laugh politely. Like this is the first time I’ve heard it. It’s somewhere north of the eight thousandth. ⸻ Then there are the naked people. Dear God. The naked people. Somewhere in Britain there appears to be an unwritten rule stating that the moment a postie knocks, clothing becomes entirely optional. One chap answers the door wearing nothing but socks and the unshakable confidence of a man who’s convinced I’m the one dressed inappropriately. After a while, you stop reacting. Not because it gets less strange. Because it becomes Tuesday. ⸻ Nothing surprises me anymore. Not really. After enough years delivering letters, your definition of “normal” quietly packs its mailbag and leaves. At first, it’s little things. People answering the door in dressing gowns held together by blind faith. Entire conversations conducted through upstairs windows because nobody can be bothered to come downstairs. Men watering hanging baskets wearing nothing but Crocs. A woman once discussed her gas bill while brushing her teeth. At no point did she seem to think this was unusual. Then there’s the wanking incident. Every postie has one story. The story. The one that resurfaces over tea years later, beginning with: “Have I ever told you about…” Mine begins with a collection. An enormous tyre. Not just a tyre. A monster truck wheel. The sort of thing that looks capable of rolling over a bungalow and flattening it through sheer enthusiasm. I knocked. Nothing. I was about to leave. Then I heard it. A groan. Another. And then the unmistakable rhythmic slapping of skin against skin. There are some sounds you only need to hear once. Unfortunately, this was one of them. Even now, I could probably identify it in a police line-up. After something like that, your internal alarm system doesn’t lower its standards. It simply hands in its notice. So by the time we reach the final delivery, I’m no longer expecting normality. “Be careful,” Mike says. “This one’s a bit strange.” Which, coming from Mike, is less a warning than a guarantee. Naturally, he hands me the parcel. “Off you go.” If there’s anything even remotely capable of causing psychological damage, Mike suddenly becomes exceptionally supportive… from a safe distance. I walk up the path. Everything is immaculate. The lawn looks like it’s been trimmed with nail scissors. Perfect flowerbeds. Perfect silence. The sort of silence that makes you instinctively lower your own breathing. Then an old man turns around. At first, he seems perfectly ordinary. He smiles. Raises his hand. His arm starts moving towards me. And keeps moving. And keeps moving. My brain waits for the elbow to arrive. It never arrives. The arm just keeps unfolding across the garden like someone feeding out a fire hose. Past the bird table. Past a hydrangea. Past the rose bush. Past what I had previously considered the acceptable upper limit for an adult human arm. Somewhere around the garden gnome, I begin to suspect we’re no longer playing by conventional anatomy. His hand arrives beside me a full five seconds before the rest of him has finished the journey. I simply stand there watching this impossible limb snake its way across the garden. It occurs to me that I should probably be alarmed. Instead… I’m quietly impressed. The reach is phenomenal. His fingers pluck the parcel from my hands without him taking a single step. He squints at the label. “Hmph.” “Wrong address.” Still standing somewhere near his conservatory. “It’s next door.” Then the arm retracts. It simply… reverses. Like an industrial tape measure. Hand. Forearm. Elbow. Shoulder. Cardigan. Until eventually it’s back where it started, tucked neatly beside him as though nothing remarkable has just happened. He hasn’t moved an inch. Neither have I. I just nod. “No worries.” Because after enough years as a postie, your brain stops asking sensible questions like, “Why does this pensioner have a forty-foot telescopic arm?” Instead, it quietly concludes: “Well… at least he answered the door.” I deliver the parcel next door. Push my trolley to the next street. Scan another parcel. Post a few letters. Wave at a customer. Carry on as though nothing unusual has happened. Because somehow… It hasn’t. Not yet. It isn’t until three streets later that my brain quietly clears its throat. Excuse me… Can we go back for a second? That man’s arm was about forty feet long. I stop. Look back. Consider it for a moment. Shrug. “Still not the strangest Tuesday I’ve had.” Then I carry on walking. Somewhere behind me, Mike drops his guts. Some things, thankfully, never change. Nothing surprises me anymore. Not really. After enough years doing this job, you stop measuring the world by whether it makes sense. You measure it by whether it slows you down. A man with a telescopic arm? Odd. But he answered the door first time. I’ve seen far stranger. And honestly… I think that’s the bit that should worry me.