Street Addresses and Shoeboxes (Patreon)

As I said only recently on quite a couple of occasions, my Spanish is getting better. Poco, a poco, a poco. Still, there are some phrases that are outside of my purview. Those idioms and pieces of slang that every language has.

In my case, I wonder what the Spanish translation for "Heather Beck" would be. If I only had one guess, I would say that it might be something akin to "Girl with the Giant Tits Who Doesn't Know How Mail Works."

I never set up a post office box in the United States. So I'm not entirely sure whether or not it's a particularly easy process. PO boxes seem almost like little shoebox-shaped dinosaurs. Some sort of carryover from the days of Blackberries and Blockbusters. After all, how much do we even rely on mail anymore? Amazon packages are great, but our bills, our postcards, those little nuggets of tri-folded paper we would get in plastic-windowed envelopes? I'm curious, how many of you actually check your mailbox on a daily basis? Back when it was still an essential thing, I know I didn't.

Long story short, the Spanish post is complicated. I live in a place that I don't own, and as a result, sometimes packages are in the hands of the post person, but they don't make it to mine, because I don't have the proper identification for the property. And then, if I address it to the house's rightful owner, they need to be here to receive it, which, unfortunately, my aunt is not.

So! I've found a workaround, which leads me back to the PO Box (or "apartado"). I finally got one!

Though... it was necessary for me to register the first line as a... company name? Mmm-kay.

Since Heather with the Beck (nee Boobs) is not (yet) a Fortune 500 company, I had to get clever on the spot, pen in hand. (Though I'm sure there are other slang terms en Español, I still felt awkward about writing "Boobs" on a document, even if only as minimally official as a post office document).

So! Abbreviations. It worked for Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce. So how about HWTB? I like it. But... it lacks flair.

I'm re-reading Beowulf at the moment. So in the blank stare at the Correos... Grendel?

HWTB Grendel. Sounds like an accounting firm! Or a trendy marketing agency, the kind where the employees wear graphic tees and call eachother "dude."

So, with that, I have a terribly unofficial company name. And a number on a box, and from there, a city with a ZIP code. But it's enough! I even had a friend mail me an international letter to see if I would get it. I did; didn't even need to unlock my box. The guy at the post office recognized me (somewhat obviously), reached in before I was able to get to the counter, and was like, "here's your letter."

So with that, everybody. I have a street address. Kind of. It's a shoebox. As you all generally know, I'm not the type of person to really digs the whole Amazon wish list thing, but in lieu of that? Maybe there'll be a postcard you run across, or some oddity, or several gold ingots (pushing it?). If so, it might be kind of fun to make the wide, wide world a little smaller. Something to get that giddy thrill involved in actually (gasp!) buying a stamp. Anyway, it's all in good fun.

Without any further adieu, if you want to do the whole pen pal thing, hit me up and I'll share. :-)