While we were away we still had to pay the bills back home. Many of our bills could either be set to auto-pay or we could pay them online, but a few things needed to be sent in with a check. For these we left checks with my husband's assistant and the runner from his office came to our house every week or so to pick up the mail and make sure everything got paid in a timely fashion.

This worked fine at first and then my husband started getting e-mails from his assistant saying that bills had not arrived and, in fact, no mail at all had arrived. Being the highly competent and lovely woman that she is, she called the utilities found out what amounts were owed and the bills still got paid, but the situation could have become rather difficult.

Why was no mail arriving at our house? It's an old house and we have our mailbox on the porch. We also have a fence around the yard and a dog. One day the mailman arrived when the dog was out in the yard. The dog barked and the mailman stopped delivering the mail. No note. No hanging the mail on the gate in a bag. Nothing. He decided the situation was "unsafe" because the dog might be in the back yard and come running around the house when he opened the gate, so he declined to deliver the mail at all.

Now I can understand not wanting to be bitten by a dog, although my dog is not a biter, but I do think a little notice was in order. The day after we got home, I noticed the mailman bypassing our house and I went out to talk to him. He asked, "Have you gotten rid of the dog yet?" I didn't know dog owning and mail delivery were necessarily incompatible and that I needed to rid myself of the canine, but I promised to keep the dog in the house during delivery times and he promised to start carrying my mail on his truck again.

The mail has shown up since and today we got a bright, shiny, new (okay not really bright or shiny, but it is new) side fence, so the dog should stay contained in the back yard and not frighten the mailman with his scary bark. I'm still glaring at the door whenever I see the mailman putting mail in the box though.