Arguing with the mailroom. Sometimes one man's problem is another man's joy. Like the nights I would be working till I literally dropped onto the office floor and the client comes in the morning to find me sleeping. Oops.

The comments your Mom made about me ("I still can't believe it. It's so sad, so tragic, what a waste of a life.") are tough to hear and are something I am sure that I will need to deal with in the future. It is that proverbial rock and hard place, to try and explain the whole thing, and now is not the time to dwell on it.

Ah, the empty house syndrome. I went through that a few times. My take on that as a prisoner is how fleeting and temporary physical possessions can be. Your letters, and the thoughts contained therein, are more valuable.

The fact that some of my letters grab you more than others is okay. I do not mean that your time should not be considered as a valuable commodity, but one must also be willing to take risk, and say things that may not be what the other person wants to hear, either because it may be painful or something as simple as the "yeah, so what did you write that for."

One of my parent’s friends lives on Long Island and for over two years was sending me the crossword page from Newsday. She would simply pull the entire page and not tear it in half, but fold it up and send me a batch every two to three months.

Then, one day I get the envelope with only her note that says "Hi Pete, here are some more crosswords" but no crosswords were enclosed.

What I did get was a form that said the contents were returned since the only way to receive newspapers is direct from the publisher.

Fine and dandy, but this was only a page from a newspaper.

Well, after trying two more times to send them in and me arguing with the mailroom, the bottom line is, I no longer get the crosswords.

Rats.

The argument was that what she was sending counted not as a page, but a "section" of a paper, and as such, could only come in via the publisher!

My Dad ordered a new Lutheran Hymnal from Augsberg Fortress Press (The Lutheran Supply Store) last year for me. The mailroom returned the book three times before I was able to convince them that Augsburg Fortress was indeed a publisher and thus they should have allowed the book in.

$20 of shipping charges later, I finally got the book!
  ¶ 8:19 AM