Roger that…

by Geno Petro

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

I stare in wonderment at my mail; not my e-mail—that constant leaky faucet of unfiltered real estate industry drip, male performance and enhancement spam, and odd social bric-a-brac from people with whom I occasionally exchange pleasantries—but my real mail. My U.S. Postal mail. The mail that Roger, my letter carrier, donned in his crisply pressed blue striped government issue uniform and pith helmut, delivers at or around 10 o’ clock each morning, except Saturdays. That’s how he likes to be referred to, or so I surmised from the money-holder envelope/holiday note he left in our mailbox last December…
 
To:        The Petros and The Klopeks

Re:        Merry Christmas 

From:   Roger, your letter carrier.

The Klopeks are our next door neighbors (three generations, mostly female, under one roof) who sold me and my wife the house we currently live in. I actually deliver their mail a few days a week because after almost a year in the neighborhood, Roger still doesn’t understand the property changed hands and we are not all one big happy Italian/Polish family sharing two houses on the same oversized lot, although we’ve all told him as much on more than a few occasions–the Klopeks and the Petros both. In defense of him though, the property was subdivided at the settlement table last August (where Roger was not present) with the main house (The Petros) and the coach house (The Klopeks) receiving separate PINs.  Anyway, Roger is a super-genius compared to the folks at the City of Chicago Assessor’s Office who, after an equal span of monthly correspondence and phone calls, likewise can’t figure out the difference between a Petro and a Klopek. I tip them nothing at Christmas.

Roger is clearly not of this Midwest culture but rather from the Philippines, or Singapore, or some Pacific Rim territory where dentistry is not a component of the universal health system and where the name ‘Roger,’  I suppose, is American for something else, and extended families are the norm rather than the exception. My father (who doesn’t live with us) has a Dell customer service rep, also named Roger, assigned to his extended service account who is definitely from, and still in, the Philippines.  Then there was the fellow behind the Hertz counter in Honolulu last Thanksgiving but as I think back now, I’m pretty sure his name may have been Patrick–but definitely not an ‘Irish’ Patrick, if you know what I’m saying. More of a Filipino Roger Patrick.

It puzzles me how a man, like Roger, who speaks so little English could even pass a civil servant exam in the first place (the contrary goes for the native Chicagoans at the Assessor’s office but I shall not digress in that direction as I too, speak but one language and, on occasion, need to be told something repeatedly for it to sink in).  He’s a sweetheart though, that Roger, and I was glad to slip a $20 Christmas tip into his handwritten envelope not so much for his accuracy, which is desultory at best, but for his timliness.  Like clockwork, Mondays through Fridays, I can expect either ours or the Klopek’s mail at, or around, 10 sharp and this to me is worth awarding a 7.5 cent per day holiday premium to a bright little man with a big decaying smile, in a pith helmut.

“Honey. I think Mrs. Klopek is pregnant again.” I declare.

“How do you know?” asks my wife, Mona.

 “Because we just got another bill from her OBGYN.”

 “Didn’t you pay that last month?”  Mona.

“No Honey.  She doesn’t live here. Remember?”

“Oh, that’s right. By the way, are you finished with Mr Klopek’s  Newsweek?” (A man I’ve only seen a handful of times.)

“Yeah.  It’s in the upstairs bathroom.”   I say.  And so it continues….

I stare at this morning’s take: A handfull of bills–half Klopek, half Petro; a bundle of magazines–AARP, Realtor, Illinois Realtor, The New Yorker, Newsweek— all addressed to me except the latter; and a salmon colored Return Receipt Final Notice from the IRS dated four months ago addressed to (and quite luckily, I must add) neither a Petro nor a Klopek.  I study the pinkish slip…

“Honey, who are the Fontenots?”

“They are the people across the street getting a divorce,”  Mona.

“Divorce? How do you know that?” I ask adding, “I didn’t even know they were married.”

“They’re not. They’re lesbians. Her name (gesturing heavy) was Fontaine and her name (gesturing skinny) was Hugenot and they combined it into Fontenot in some type of civil service in Canada. One of the Klopek grandmothers told me.”   Two grandmothers also live in the coach house  at the back of our property but even after a year on the same land, sharing the same water and sewage bill, my wife and I are not entirely sure which is which.

“Lesbians?”   I never really looked too closely but I guess it doesn’t matter now although the heavier one was always very nice to me. The IRS has probably seized their house by now anyway.

“Why is the Klopek’s American Express bill always so much thinner than ours?” I ask, not expecting an answer. I don’t get one.

“And why don’t we get mail on Saturdays anymore?” I wonder aloud to more deaf ears and silent responses.

I feel empathy for the ladies across the street. Just about the time they are able to legally wed (in some states, at least), what they really require is the exact opposite.  And to top it off, the IRS swoops down and is about to snatch their house, more than likely. Perhaps I should ask a grandmother if she’s heard any talk in the neighborhood about a government seizure.  It’s all about timing, I conclude quite dimly.

I quickly pull up the Fontenot tax records on my computer but everything appears to be held in a Trust; no liens, no levys, no mortgages. I then type in my own address and immediately see the single surname entry: Klopek. There are no Petros anywhere to be found. I reach for the phone to speed dial the City of Chicago but suddenly decide against it.  I lack the energy on this day to be put on hold.

I look down at the bundle of magazines on my credenza. I grab The New Yorker and flip to the back page to see if my cartoon caption got published this week but alas…no.  No again.  I pass on AARP and the real estate industry rags before deciding to thumb through the mysterious Mr. Klopek’s latest Newsweek instead. 

Perhaps Roger thinks we’re Mormons and all the women he sees coming and going; Petro, Klopec, pregnant, lesbian and otherwise, are all  my wives, grandmothers included. I wonder if he knows that all these children running up and down the sidewalk, skipping across the lawn and hopping through the sprinklers do not belong to me.  And where the heck does Mr Klopek spend all his time and why can’t someone get me my mail on Saturday or answer the phone at City Hall or just once, publish my funny cartoon caption on the last page of The New Yorker. And speaking of magazines, who’s sick joke was it to subscribe me to AARP anyway?