Happy Surprises and Such



In my mailbox, yesterday, between the bills and promises of lower interest rates, I found a golden envelope. Not business-size, or standard-size… No, it was much smaller than that… pocket-size, perfect for keeping close to your heart, if you took the notion.

     The moment I saw the little golden envelope, I knew that it had traveled from a world of castles and topiaries and apartments above bakeries, where one wakes to birdsong and the smell of warm bread every single morning, and that it had come, quite possibly, in the pointed beak of a snowy egret, but more than likely had been passed from hand to hand into an airplane, flown across an ocean and a great deal of a continent, and then driven to my mailbox, in a Jeepish vehicle that magically steers on the right side. (Coincidence? I think not. It was, after all, golden.)

     I opened the envelope right then and there, and found inside two Eskimos, bundled in fur (as it was very cold both here and there), and a wish for a thousand happy surprises in the year to come.

     Seems I have nine hundred and ninety-nine happy surprises left and three hundred, and sixty-five days in which to spend them. Aren't I the lucky boy? 

     Thank you, Stephanie.