I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have never been much of a hugger. Hugging is a personal thing to me. Really, physical contact of any kind is pretty personal. I maintain my personal space most of the time. Hugging is generally reserved for people for whom I feel genuine love and affection. But over the past few years, I have had to adapt to hugging culture, and decide that I have some degree of love and affection for more people than I had previously thought. Therefore, more hugs. Although, in all fairness, I have noticed that hugs are not “one size fits all.” There are many different kinds of hugs. Where am I going with this? Well, twice in two days I have gotten hugs from perfect strangers. Because of my new CD. So, good story:
I spent the evening stuffing padded envelopes and boxes with CDs for mailing, and then sticking labels on. I loaded all the CD orders in a huge box, and at 9:00 a.m. I drove down to the little post office in the canyon. I knew that my fifty parcels were going to take awhile to process, so as a little thank you I took along one of the CDs. It took about thirty minutes to post them all, and about halfway through the postal employee was admiring the artwork on the mailing labels, which is the same as the CD cover. I told her thank you, and that I had brought her a CD.She was so excited that she opened it up and actually kissed my picture on the inside of the label:). She insisted that she would be playing my CD and showing it to everyone who came in. She called it her “marketing program.” She took me into the back room (I have never been in the back room of a post office before), showed me a bunch of options for free packaging and loaded me up with samples. She instructed me that on my next batch of mailing, I was to call her and make an appointment for a “secret meeting” a half hour before the post office opens. We exchanged phone numbers, and then a hug. I can say with perfect certainty that it was the most warm and friendly postal experience I have ever had. And the hug thing… second time in two days. I think this is going to be an interesting week.
By the way... the photo was taken near the Trabuco Canyon post office in 1969. And it still looks just like that.
