There is a story behind just about everything in Israel - even our post office box.

We received a great deal of mail, but our home postal delivery was rather tricky. Oh, the mail did arrive nicely during wartime. That's when all of the regular mailmen were in the army, and volunteers distributed the mail. However, we wanted to read our mail during the intermittent peacetime lulls as well.

Granted, the regular mailman did try to come at least once a week, but as the community grew, it became increasingly difficult for him to achieve his noble goal - especially since he remained the only guy on the shift.

Even during those iffy and unpredictable times when he did deliver the mail, there was little privacy. He would often drop a stack of mail near our home, on the assumption that sonme of it may have been addressed to those with whom we were familiar. We helped him by delivering the mail to the correct address, but some letters were inevitably missing.

We therefore decided to get a post office box. We wanted the luxury of regular, daily mail delivery, and the security of reading out mail before the neighborhood kids or the elements got to it.

That doesn't seem like a major investment, right? It also seems like a reasonable goal, since post offices were located everywhere in town – except where we lived. There were plenty of post offices in the center of town, but they didn't have any available boxes. Our only alternative was to select a post office in a distant community.

We did mull over the fact that those distant communities had post offices, while our larger community didn't have one, but then we decided that it would be more practical to resolve our own problem. We could not get a box in one of those neighborhoods, since we had decided not to buy a car. There is no way that we would have been able to pick up our mail on a regular basis.

So we submitted applications in some of the centrally-located post offices. They took down our name and phone number, but they also suggested that we check back every so often, so that they could let us know whether a box had become available.

After some time, we asked whether a box was available in the Machaneh Yehuda open-air market branch. We had previously applied for a box there.

"Sure," said postal clerk said. "Of course we have available boxes here. No problem."

"Why weren't we notified?"

"Oh, were you on a waiting list? Yussie, where's the list?"

So we got a post office box in a reasonable location. It was not our first choice, but we can't complain. The clerks got to know us, and they handed us our packages while other irate customers waited on line.

We also got used to getting mail more often. Instead of waiting at least a week for mail deliveries, we enjoyed mail distribution five times a day. Well, that was during the good days. Subsequent cutbacks reduced the hours that the post office was open, as well as the frequency of mail deliveries.

David had many clients at that time, so he got used to switching buses at the post office. There was always mail waiting there.

Our second box

Finally, when Ramot celebrated its 12th birthday, the postal "service" decided to open a local post office branch, replete with boxes.

We already had a box in Machaneh Yehuda, but wouldn't it be more convenient to have one closer to home?

Granted, the boxes were located in the new shopping center. That was not very convenient, since we rarely had need to go there. However, we had to make a quick decision. We had to take a box before they ran out of them.

We took a box.

We wanted a good, easy-to-remember number, but they insisted on allocating the boxes sequentially.

So, we went back a few times until we landed a reasonable number.

Of course, good things often come in threes. Perhaps our wish list of desirable can't-live-without items did not include three post offices, but we certainly can't argue with the threesies when they arrive. Besides, we discovered that rolling our eyes does help exercise those muscles.

Our third box

So, a few days after we paid for our post office box in Ramot, we received our long-awaited notice from the main post office. That had always been our top-priority location.

Yes, they had a box waiting for us.

Apparently, they didn't lose their waiting list. Maybe it would have been better for us if they were a bit less efficient.

Now, keep in mind that a box in the main post office offers real prestige. Not only are people dying to get a box there, but many people have to wait until somebody dies until they get one.

Somebody must have died.

Now, we had to make an instantaneous decision about that box.

We really didn't need a third box. We didn't even need a second box. On the other hand, this had originally been our first-choice box.

So, we took it. We knew that we could make a permanent decision in the future.

That offered us the questionable luxury of three post office boxes. Now we had to run around to three separate and distant locations in order to pick up our mail. We also had to pay for this pleasure. Since we couldn't get to every post office every day, our mail service deteriorated - all in the name of convenience.

Many years later, we unloaded that third box. Our quality of life suddenly improved. We discovered that we had a greater disposable income, and we didn't have to travel to a distant post office box. We got our mail more frequently, since we only had to pick it up from two locations.

Perhaps one day we'll take the next steps. Maybe we'll unload another post office box, and then the third one. Imagine - if we do that, then the post office will actually deliver all of our mail right to our home.

Now, that's luxury.