quicko: further thoughts on suburbs

Today I had occasion to visit the post office twice.  I'm not all that fond of the post office -- I mean, it's nice and everything, but I don't have any huge attachment -- but they sent me a little postcard this morning that said they had A Box for me.  So I went and got The Box.  (There's a two hour lesson on articles in those two sentences, but thank goodness you've mastered your English already.  It's really a rather dull lesson.)

When I picked up The Box I mentioned that, maybe, possibly, there might be another for me but I might not have gotten the corresponding postcard yet.  The nice woman assured me that I had the only box they had for me.  So I took it and chirped merrily home.  (It had been, incidentally, a particularly good mail day.  Not only had I received the postcard of boxiness, I had also received a Christmas card, a real letter and a wedding invitation for my favorite engaged couple.  And then I had gone to work, where I only had to teach 90 minutes, then got to have a picnic!  And then went for coffee with the teachers!  And get to wear my new dress tonight!  To a party!  And a Christmas Eve service!  With candlelight!  It was really more than just a good mail day, actually, it was an all-around good day!)

However, when I got home, I found at my door another postcard of boxiness.  Normally I'd have been content just to have left it for another day, but today is Christmas Eve and the first box came from Santa and was full of my stocking stuffers, while the second box came from Mom and was full of my Christmas presents.  I knew she'd want me to have my box on Christmas day (that's why she'd spent exorbitant amounts mailing it over seven seas, six deserts, three plains and two oceans) so leaving it on its own for the holiday was out of the question.  I traipsed back to get it.

And that was when it hit me:  it would take me roughly the same amount of time to get my from home in America to my post office in America as it would take for me to get from my home in Australia to my post office in Australia -- the only difference being that in America I'd be driving and in Australia I'd be walking.  And therein lies the difference:  the size of suburbs!  American suburbs are huge -- ten minutes driving inside one is perfectly typical, and I'm not just talking 25 mph -- certainly up to 40 (49 if you speed), if not 65 (74 if you speed) on the highway.  Mine has no fewer than 4 (4!) exits off a major highway.  If I drove that far in Sydney, I'd be four suburbs over, at least.

But who's counting?  It's Christmas Eve and I have my presents.  To all a goodnight.