995 Pounds of Books

In case you haven't heard, I'm moving to Hawaii in a couple of weeks. The people who hired my husband recommended that we send our books by media mail instead of putting them in a shipping container. Saves money. So today we boxed up the last of the books and took them all to the post office. The back tires were bulging and my husband had a hard time handling the van.

You may wonder how we got all those boxes from the back of the van to the post office counter. Well, when we got to the post office we asked them for a cart. I was thinking of one of those big flat-bedded things they have at hardware stores. The postal worker went back in the back and came out with something that looked more like a shopping-cart.

"That won't be enough," I said.

"We're moving to Hawaii and we're shipping our entire library," my husband explained.

"Oh," said the postal worker. "I'll go get you a bin, then."

She came out again, this time with a huge thing like a plastic-sided mine cart.

"That should work," I said.

I was wrong. We needed two of them. Here's my son wheeling half of the load into the post office:

Back at the counter, the postal workers weighed, stamped, and took away all twenty five boxes, then handed us a receipt six feet long. The grand total? 995 pounds of books. Aloha, my books! See you in Hawaii!