When the phone rang last Friday I was excited to see the local post office’s number show up on my caller id screen. Phone calls from the post office mean I have a package.

Packages mean thin mint cookies, or books or cute tops from online clothing boutiques.

(My husband always says packages mean higher credit card bills but that’s because he is a bit of a fuddy duddy and hasn’t discovered the joy of trying to rip into an over-taped card board box with your name on it.)

“Hello?” I chirped while wondering what sort of goody was going to be waiting for me at my mail box.

“Hi Tanis. It’s Roy. Just calling to let you know there is a package here for you.”

“Oh goody!” I enthused.

“Er, this parcel, it’s um, well, it’s rather big.” Roy offered slightly bashfully.

“Oh really? Maybe it’s the fish tank I’ve been waiting for forever!”

Silence.

“Er, if you say so.” There was something in the tone of Roy’s voice that caught my attention. He sounded embarrassed. “All of the ladies here keep coming by to take a look at the box,” he admitted while sounding he’d rather be having his teeth ripped out with pliers than having this conversation with me.

My inner warning signal started to ding rather loudly.

“Oh!” I couldn’t remember ordering any online um, toys, and my mind was drawing a blank.

“Um, ya. I think someone’s having a little fun at your expense,” my elderly post man apologetically explained.

“Really? How odd!” By now I was abuzz with curiousity. What in the hell could that parcel be that caused the post man I had known my entire life and who grew up with my uncles and my father to sound as though I had just caught him surfing a gay porn website?

We made arrangements to meet later on that day at my mailbox where he would bring me my parcel and save me a trip from driving into town. My post man rocks. (Except when he calls me to yell at me for not picking up my mail. Which he ends up having to do fairly frequently because I tend to forget the mail and it builds up until you can’t even manage to jam one more envelope into the tightly stuffed box.)

That afternoon, on a dirt country road beside a row of metal mail boxes, my mailman pulled up beside my truck and slowly got out of his truck.

“Hey Roy!”

“Afternoon Tanis. This parcel is awfully big. Hope you have room in the back for it.”

“It must be my fishtank! I’m so excited! I’ve waited for months to get the danged thing. I finally had to resort to getting a friend from the States to ship it to me,” I babbled on as I opened the hatch to my SUV.

“A friend eh? Hope it’s a good friend,” Roy snickered as he puttered in the back of the mail truck.

After tossing a volleyball and a soccer ball into the back seat I turned around to face him, about to tell him that ya, it was a good friend when I caught sight of the parcel.

My jaw just dropped.

Roy looked at my face and burst out laughing. “I warned you someone was having a joke at your expense,” he chuckled as I blushed from my toes to the roots of my hair.

“I’m gonna kill that bastard,” I half joked, half promised.

“Ya, you should have seen the look on the girls face at the office. I only wish I could see what the customs people thought when they scanned your parcel,” he grinned.

Shaking my head, I grabbed the oversized box and stuffed it into the back of my truck. “I don’t even want to think about that. I can’t believe him!” I groaned.

“I think someone needs to get a special parcel of his own. Like perhaps a glass dildo or a kit for erectile dysfunction,” he helpfully offered as he waited for me to sign for my delivery.

It was like I was in the twilight zone. I was having a conversation with an almost 70 year old man, a man who grew up with my father and sings in the local church’s choir about sex toys and practical jokes.

Oh ground, you could open up and swallow us both at any time, I plead silently as I closed the hatch.

“Hahaha,” I halfheartedly offered. “I’m so sorry Roy. Adam has a twisted sense of humour. Too much time on his hands. He’s an unemployed, uneducated Yankee who I kinda feel sorry for. Like a dog you don’t want to kick, you know?”

“Oh I’m not so old that I can’t enjoy a good practical joke,” Roy smiled as I hastily scrawled my name on the paper on his clipboard.

“Well, that’s good to know,” I stammered, because what the hell else could I say? This wasn’t exactly a conversation I ever thought I would have with the man who knows every member of my family and my husband’s family.

“You let me know how that all works out for you Tanis. I’ve always wondered,” he giggled as he got in his truck to drive away.

“Very funny Roy! It’s a fish tank! A fish tank!!!” I hollered after his truck as he pulled away chuckling.

Damn you Avitable.

Sleep with one eye open dude. Cuz your turn is coming.

Adam had carefully labeled EVERY side of the box too. For maximum embarrassment.

See? A FISH TANK. NOT a buttload of anal bleach.