Blinkered vision

Last weekend I ordered a book from Amazon - oh, the fatally easy one-click ordering! - and realised as I hit "buy" that it would arrive when I was away from home. Never mind, I thought - it's a paperback; it's going to fit through the box. Nae problem.

Later that day my pal, knowing the hunt I had had for a particular scarf, rang me from her foray to deepest England to tell me she'd found one and was posting it. "I'll be away ..." I said, but she reassured me. It was small and light and in a small envelope. It would fit through the letter-box. Again, nae problem.

We arrived home on Wednesday afternoon to find the familiar post-card from the postie. "You were out". Indubitably. I would have to wait till next morning to find my parcel - for it mentioned only one. What, I wondered, had become of the other one?

Yesterday morning I found out. The postie - or whoever prepares mail for his round - had fastened my book and the envelope with the scarf together with one of the Post Office elastic bands that tend to litter the doorstep. But the postie hadn't removed said band this time, despite the fact that individually the book packet and the scarf envelope slid easily through the box. No, he had solemnly written that this parcel was too big to go through and that I would have to collect it.

Dead convenient, no?