Lost And Found...

Oh Shannon.

This picture was taken in December, with one of my little disposables.  

I had decided to make an advent calendar to send home, in lieu of one big Christmas gift, and in anticipation of Shannon coming to visit me in Europe.  Over several hours a train ride to Barcelona, I wrapped up little trinkets in brown paper, tied them with red string, and labeled them according to the day they should be opened.

I"ll admit I was a little excited about the box full of goodies reaching its recipient and checked with Shannon incessantly to see whether it had arrived.  

Much to my chagrin, advent days began to slip by, and Shannon still hadn't gotten my package in the mail.

Months later, I had resigned myself to the idea that it had just been lost somewhere between Spain and California due to those bumbling postal workers at the Correos.

But! One of the first days I was back home, visiting Shannon's little cottage by the beach, and drinking whiskey sours in her back garden, I spotted an oddly familiar green lump tucked under the back stoop and did a double take. 

There was no mistaking that iconic green box and yellow tape- Shannon's Christmas present had finally arrived!

Late mail is better than no mail at all, I thought, but on further investigation, it turns out that the package hadn't been late at all.  Tucked away in the garden it had escaped notice for months, and weathered rainstorms, bleaching sunrays and worse.  We opened up the box to find that a family of snails and their salamander friends had taken up residence inside and decided to eat the tags and wrapping paper.  I didn't even know snails ate paper!

I found the whole thing rather amusing, and though the advent days and Christmas socks are now irrelevant, the lost and found aspect makes up for the novelty.
Merry Christmas in April!

P.S.  I feel sort of about having thought poorly of the Correos postal workers.  The little post office ladies had laughed and laughed when  I arrived with a sack full of little numbered parcels but they had, been nothing but helpful and accommodating as I tried out different box sizes before settling on one for shipping, and in fact, were very excited about the idea of a postal advent calendar too.