Confirmation Number

I've decided to stay an extra day or two in this undisclosed southern location and so need alter my hold mail request so that piles of mail don't sit on an unguarded doorstep waiting for my return. I was relieved to discover that the US Postal Service website has a form for just this specific request. And then dejected to see that they quite reasonably want the confirmation number for the original request before they'll amend it.

I actually remember looking at that confirmation number and then grabbing a pencil and sorting through pages of articles, drafts of a funding proposal and approximately 3200 Post-It notes, all containing unlabeled numbers of various lengths, for my pad of Post-Its so that I could add to the growing collection. And Nancy, I just said no. My little historian's brain is not made for numbers. Some day I'll blog about why this is really quite tragic, but for now, let's just say that my brain refuses to register numbers as important and mark them for storage. It's a triumph to calculate tip at a restaurant. Between my three phone numbers (home, cell, office) and the three phone numbers of my six closest friends, combined with my social security number, my student ID number, my bank account number, and the damn +4 on my zip, I'm full up. So I rolled my eyes at all the post-its with all the useless confirmation numbers from the online bill payments and amazon.com orders, and refused to take down one more blessed number.

And damn if I don't really want it now.