The seventeen most beautiful words in the English language: "Delivery Status: Your item was delivered at 8:00 am on December 17, 2001 in MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455." After you have purchased 30-some dollars worth of intangible tracking service and flimsy white envelopes, I think the Postal Service intentionally delays packages several days after it promised they'd get there just to provide the huge rush of relief when they actually do arrive. It's really quite smart, business-wise... it give you satisfied customers who are just too thankful and relieved to complain about what was, in reality, extremely bad service. There's an element of that post-trauma forgetfullness. Who cares about all that stress and the checking of the Web site 6 times a day, and the 49 backup plans about what to do and who to call if it isn't there by this or that deadline -- it's there! After all that, my package made it! God bless the USPS! :)

In unrelated news, I gave the fourth-grader I mentor her Christmas present today. Although it's not particularly extravagent, it's in four parts -- two books ("Misty of Chincoteague" and "Misty's Foal"), 5 of those gel pen things, a bunch of sticks of modeling clay and some weird shiny, bronze-colored, Silly Putty-esque substance called Mars Mud that just looked amusing -- and she elected to open one of the four parts today and put the rest of the stuff underneath her tree at home. She opened the pens, and she liked them, and she said all the stuff you'd think kids would say when they open a present they like, such as "this is so great, it's just what I wanted" and "my friends have pens like this and I always wanted some"... but the look on her face was just incredible. She. Was. So. Excited. About pens that cost $3 at Staples, and I didn't even know she wanted them, and and and. I don't know. It was just the greatest feeling in the world. It makes me understand, just a little, how these holidays became so commercialized and gift-centric -- if I could put that look on her face every single time I saw her, I would do it in a heartbeat. And if I had to outdo myself time after time after time for fear that I wouldn't see that look if the gift wasn't as good as the last one, I might start spending obscene amounts of cash and buying obscene amounts of stuff and just doing too, too much in the hopes that it would come back.