"Good job!"

The other morning I was walking the pooch down a block we rarely walk on. As a matter of fact it's a block where I've probably only seen someone come in or out of a home three or four times in over 2 years. This particular morning at around 7:20am, though, I heard some generalized toddler-type wailing and gnashing of teeth. While the dog sniffed vigorously I looked up to see if I could identify which window actually sported living inhabitants. Wonder of wonders I saw a door closing as an adult in blue and white striped pajamas pulled the paper inside. This muted the hollering and Em and I moved on. Being a dog, however, she was enjoying sniffing exactly every square centimeter of this oft-skipped block so I was still close a minute or two later when I heard "thunk". I looked up in time to see a heavy, bright blue bag of New York Times landing back outside onto the stoop of the door I'd just seen. Then a tiny hand reached out and laboriously hauled the paper back inside. An adult voice said, "Good job!" and the door closed again.