When I work, I make myself at home. Because, you know, I am at home. On these miserable wintry days (not that I’m complaining, ha), I bundle up in sweats as soon as I get back from my morning errands. These are the same sweats I was wearing from the time I got up until the I left for my errands, except during the few minutes I was jumping into and out of the shower.

In other words, I spend my day in comfort clothes. I find it a lot more comfortable that way, but I can’t walk the 500 feet or so to the road for my mail, late in the afternoon when it’s starting to get even darker than it was all day, in sweats and slippers. So at about 4 pm every day I go through the ritual of getting into a pair of Levi’s and finding my shoes for the mini-trek to the mailbox.

Every day it’s like that, and every day I grumble and groan about having to change clothes in the middle of the day for a five-minute chore. Today was no exception. At the appointed time, when I knew the mail would have been delivered, I got into my jeans and sneakers and headed out the front door.

Then I remembered. Because today’s post brought me one the holiday packages I’d ordered on line over the weekend, my postal carrier had kindly and thoughtfully brought my mail to the door. Two hours earlier. She’d knocked and I’d thanked her as she handed it to me, and somehow it hadn’t registered that this meant I wouldn’t have to change clothes and wouldn’t have to walk out in the cold gloaming to get my mail — which was already here!

Not very bright, eh? Creature of habit, and all that, but still. You’d think a person of reasonable intelligence would take a little closer notice of the events of the day, especially when it came to a task that’s such a burden in the first place. But the worst, most telling part of the story is this: This was the second time this has happened to me in the last week. Brilliant.