Special Delivery

I've always heard that it's good to broaden your horizons. See how the rest of the world lives, learn from them, and apply the best of it to your own way of life. Turns out that's excellent advice, because at least one of the things I learned on my trip to New York City has already paid off.

First, a bit of backstory. In addition to this blog, my doses of wit and wisdom also appear in column I write for a few area newspapers. This week's column went like this (some of which will sound familiar if you read my last blog post):

As I mentioned in my last column, I ventured east to the Big Apple last week. New York City. I expected to return home with half a year's worth of story fodder about my misadventures in the metropolis. Unfortunately, my assortment of hosts herded me from one location to another with the relentless efficiency of a pack of border collies, which made for an excellent, glitch-free vacation but left me with nothing to write about. 

I didn't even get robbed, unless you count the guy selling umbrellas in Grand Central Station, and charging four times the going rate is a clear case of carpe diem, or whatever you call taking advantage of people who know they're going to hike a mile across Manhattan on a day when there's a seventy percent chance of rain and still aren't smart enough to plan ahead.

The city was definitely a whole different world from back here at home. First off, there are no pickups. In two days, I didn't spot a single one. Makes sense, I guess. What use does a New Yorker have for an open box? Anything you put in there would either get soaked or stolen, possibly at the next stoplight. Even the construction crews drive vans.

Second, there are trees on top of skyscrapers. Seriously. Can you picture that in Glacier County? I'd give it a week, max, before the next strong breeze plucked those suckers out of their little tubs and tossed them clear over to Havre.

But the best part of Manhattan was the food delivery. Come lunchtime you just grab a handful of menus, pick what you want, and in half an hour a guy shows up at the office door, a slice of cheese pizza and a cold Pepsi in hand. Unless you wanted sushi. Or Thai. Or any other kind of food you can imagine. It was awesome.

Not to say we don't have delivery service up here on the Highline. At least once a week a person from the feed store, the auto parts store or the implement dealership appears at my office, dropping off something my husband or one of the neighbors needs brought out to the ranch, thereby saving them a drive to town. Our receptionists have accepted everything from tractor bearings to a bag of ear tags on my behalf. They no longer blink when handed the annual bull semen sales catalog.

The first day I was back from New York, one of my office mates dropped a brand new hoof rasp on my desk, freshly delivered. As I sat there wishing it was a bagel with cream cheese, it occurred to me the solution might lie in another die hard Big Apple tradition--tipping.

I wonder what it would take to get the feed store folks to swing by the quick stop and grab me a Pepsi and a KitKat on their way into town? 

My column came out on Wednesday. Today just before lunch time this arrived at my desk, courtesy of Kelly from BTI Feed:

So what have I learned from this experience, dear readers? Well, first off, somebody actually does read that stuff I put in the paper. And second, Kelly would never survive as a New York delivery person. She forgot to stick around for her tip.