Page 35 - Life's Outtakes 8

a while, when we were shorthanded, I would receive a
sorting assignment in a few of the buildings.

One day, a few of our mail sorters had the flu, and
everyone needed to do extra work. In the center of
campus the three biggest and busiest buildings were
laid out in a triangle, and it was in them that I was
assigned to sort the mail after I dropped it off. I
decided, for efficiency, to haul the bins of mail from the
truck into each building and then work my way back,
sorting as I went.

I had just finished hauling the mail to the last of
the three buildings when a vehicle’s horn started to
blare. It was so loud I could hear it clear into the mail
room in the center of the building, and its tone was
grating and obnoxious. The horn blared the whole time
I sorted, and I couldn’t believe its owner didn’t get it
stopped. As I stepped from the building, the horn was
so loud that I knew it had to be heard all over the
campus. I quickly sorted the mail in the next two
buildings with the horn blaring the whole time. I finally
finished and headed back to my truck.

As I approached it, to my dismay, I found it
surrounded by hundreds of people, and, worst of all, it

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