A Mail Desk Oracle: Elastic Wisdom

You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

There is a rubber band ball at work. One of my coworkers started it several years ago.

Our mail comes in secured in tidy little bundles held together by sturdy, khaki colored rubber bands. It started small, just a few wrapped around a foam center. Eventually, it started taking size, heft, it grew, larger, gaining weight. It was a source of pride.

It showed what a little ingenuity and perseverance could accomplish. Moreover, it was a good way to recycle the rubber bands. What else would we have done with them?

It became a talisman of sorts, the oracle of the mail desk. We practiced a homegrown phrenology, divining the future from the various bumps that were a natural byproduct of manually assembling a rubber band ball.

It predicted the winner of the 2015 Stanley Cup Championship. According to the Richard, the shipping guy, who asked the question. He said the rubber band ball told him Chicago would win, he was sure it had said so. Unfortunately, he didn’t believe an oddly shaped ball, assembled from discarded, reused rubber bands, and maintained by an assistant warehouse manager could possibly understand the nuances of ice hockey, so he placed a large wager on Tampa Bay. He lost. Later, he started claiming the rubber band had told him Chicago would lose, he was adamant.

The rubber band ball was magnanimous in its silence.

I asked the rubber band ball for guidance several times. Laying my hands on the bumps and contours and sensing the odd struggle within. Eventually, after profound perceptible cycles coursing through the foam core and running along the miles of rubber conduit, it would deliver a verdict. “You should make a cup of tea, instead of a pot of coffee.” Sometimes it was similar to the Magic Eight Ball app I have on my phone, “Reply hazy, try again later.”

There were plans for the rubber band ball. The person responsible for its construction and maintenance, we’ll call him William, planned to take it to the roof of the four-story building and throw it into the middle of the parking lot. It was getting too big to wrap any more of the post office rubber bands around the ball. William’s sense of right and wrong prohibited him from buying any rubber bands, he felt that would be cheating. The rubber band ball had reached maturity.

He started talking about taking it out in the spring, after the weather warmed and sending it off, dropping 60 feet. Its glorious final chapter. We had plans to station associates at different locations to video tape the last electric, unpredictable seconds of the rubber band ball. Smart phones have changed everything, even a farewell to an old friend.

One day, an unusually cold day in early October, the holiday rush of orders was just beginning. I stopped by the rubber band ball to ask if I was going to make it through another crazed holiday.

“What?” Was the groggy reply. “Sorry, I was napping.”

I asked again. It snored, softly, a deep rhythmic hum emanating from deep within the small orb.

I decided to ask the Magic Eight Ball app on my phone.

A week later I noticed the rubber band ball was changing. I stopped by to ask if a simple question. It was more an act of respect. We had a working relationship, and I wasn’t going to let one sleepy morning interfere.

Several of the rubber bands had failed and were drooping in ragged sheets of shredded latex. It was getting old. You could see it in the way it had settled into the base, easing over the sides, gently, and almost imperceptibly. It was dark outside, inky black, a cloudy sky, it turned the window into an imperfect mirror, and I saw myself staring at me. Framed by the green wood of the casement, I stood, parts of me drooping over my belt slightly. I had my Covid hair hanging down to my shoulder, unkempt and grey, wild, unmanageable curls laying defiantly on my shoulders.

It was an epiphany, the rubber band ball was not merely clairvoyant, with the power to see the future for those who would listen. It had part of the power of Dorian Gray’s portrait, only we were growing old together. It sat there staring at me, scruffy rubber curls hanging over both sides, it had a hermit’s power and charm. And I was staring at it and me in the window beyond, aging and softening, wrinkles around my eyes, and mouth. My face had softened, and was losing definition, I was beginning to look the same as the rubber band ball.

The metamorphosis has changed not only the rubber band ball but the attitude toward it. Nobody wanted to throw it off anything anymore. We all wanted it to grow old gracefully. It had become a treasured keepsake, a reminder of our own path through the difficult struggles of life.

I laid my hand on the rubber band ball.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be ok.” It said. And I believed it.

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This Post is republished on Medium.