Thread by @gauravsabnis

This is a regular #NYC thing.

The mail piled up for a while.

If you know the neighbors are young, you just shrug and move on.

What if you know that the neighbors are a senior couple, one of whom is disabled? And who keep to themselves?

For me the anxiety built slowly.

I've known this couple over a decade, but I've not really known them well like I've known other neighbors. So I don't have a phone number, even through Sandy and lockdown, for them like I do for many other neighbors.

It took a few days for the pile to build up as you can guess.

Just as the pile built up to a level making me uneasy enough to go find our veteran building Super, I saw him outside the door, ringing the doorbell.

"I was about to ask you", we both said almost simultaneously.

Yeah, we were both thinking the same thing. 😬😬

"maybe they are on vacation?" I said

"Maybe. You are them go?"

"No"

"Me neither. You have their number?"

"No. Maybe Ann does. I've seen her talk to them."

We ring Ann's doorbell. She isn't home.

"Should I call someone?" He asks

"I don't know. Should you?"

D and I have known each other 12 years. He's known them even longer. He's worked in this job 34 years. He's one of those building supers you see in NYC movies and TV shows.

If he's worried, maybe we should be worried.

"They could just be on vacation." he says uncertainly

"They generally stop their newspaper when they travel though" he adds, worried.

At this point, I'll end the suspense. They are on vacation.

But it took D and me another day and a half to verify this.

We were they only two who seemed to have noticed and felt that worry.

That worry, did something bad happen to those nice old people in 9F? Why else are there newspapers piled up?

Finally we ran into Ann. Who did have their cell. Who did text them and find out, yes, they had gone to Florida for a vacation. Prolly weekend when D has a break.

I told D and he was so genuinely relieved.

"When they come back, I'm gonna take and save their cellphone numbers. 😔 I was so worried!"

Just another day in a Manhattan building.

It got me thinking tho. What had me and D notice the pile was the newspapers. They are an old school couple who still gets the daily newspaper.

But imagine if something goes wrong to an old couple who doesn't get newspapers or Amazon deliveries?

Which could be us one day!

Also, so lucky to have D in our lives. He really cares. Without being intrusive.

D even showed me a pair of keys

"She gave me this key years ago to use in case of an emergency because <disability> but I don't want to just use it, you know? I don't want to enter without permission."

❤️❤️❤️

"There are not one but two rubber band mail packets 😳" D said to me knowingly.

And I nodded, knowingly exactly what he meant.

You folks might not.

Our NYC mailboxes are tiny, like our apartments. But we will get as much spam post as anyone in America. It piles up!

If you don't clear out your ground floor mailbox regularly, either cos you're lazy or cos you're traveling, your friendly neighborhood postal worker will take it all out, put two thick elastic bands around them and passive aggressively dump them at your actual door.

This generally takes 2 weeks at least. For example, we returned from our 2 weeks long vacation to find a rubber band packet of mail outside our door instead of inside our mailbox. Cos we had forgotten to clear it before leaving. 🙈

Hence the extra anxiety for D and me. Just piled up newspapers and mail and Amazon boxes but TWO packets with rubber bands? Is it time to call someone or get permission to enter?

Thankfully, not this time. 😁