Queued Up

Today, I ran to the post office near my office for what I thought was a quick mailing of packages -- 10 minutes, roundtrip, I thought confidently. I'd be back before anyone realized I was gone. Ha! But this was before I got to the post office and realized that lunch at this particular banch was at THREE O'CLOCK. And so there was only one person at the counter, and about two people in line waiting. I hereby propose the following theory: one postal worker + limited amount of time + people who need to mail complicated packages = standing in a line for a very, very, very long time.

The lady who was first in line had a platinum blond rat-tail, close-cropped salt and pepper hair and platinum-hued bangs. She was wearing blue jeans, with a wee bit of thong showing, and a cotton shirt. She held three packages, none of them labeled or addressed. She wanted them to go to the Big City to the West and she wanted them there by Saturday. "Will it get there by Saturday?" she asked. The postman said yes, of course, probably in a couple days. And then she considered. "Do you deliver on Saturday?" And forgive me for my unkindness, but I remember thinking, as she juggled her various packages, "Oh my goodness, I'm standing behind the one woman in America who has never ever used the mail system at any time in her life." To her credit, she did step aside to actually label her packages, and then the next guy went and he was just holding about six or seven envelopes.

I let out a sigh of relief too early, because apparently this guy, well, he didn't label his envelopes properly and he actually had the address wrong on one of them (actually, it kind of scared me when the post man said he knew every street address in the city by heart. This is a city of THREE MILLION PEOPLE AND 80 GAZILLION HIGHWAYS -- I barely know the streets around my area, let alone in a city that's considered among the largest in America). And also, every single one of those envelopes needed to be insured and delivery-confirmation. When that was finally finished, the first lady came back with her packages and now, she wanted to send one of the three packages Cash on Delivery.

I didn't even know the post office still did COD. I don't think the postman knew about COD either, because he kind of looked at her and said, "Huh?" And the lady answered, "Well, I want the recipient to pay me for whatever it would have cost me to send this package." And the postman just kept staring at her. And the lady explained it again. She wanted to mail the package with the works apparently -- insurance, delivery confirmation, express mail -- and I kept staring at the package wondering how something so flat could be worth $100 worth of insurance ( The Scream would be worth more than $100, though I'm not particularly fond of the painting myself).

Meanwhile, the line behind me kept growing. I stared at the clock. I'd been at the post office now for nearly 20 minutes and the postman was sitting there figuring insurance and all the post office works by hand (on a pink sticky, as a matter of fact). When I turned around, I saw a woman with a few packages, all labeled in bright blue market on all sides "John Smith" -- and this made me smile because I assumed she was sending care packages to her son who had just returned to school after the winter holiday break. The guy behind me kept looking at the two packages I was holding and I showed him the front, just to assure him that I'd already addressed them and all I needed was the postage.

Finally, COD lady was done and it was my turn. I gave him the packages and said, "Media mail, please." The postman stuck the postage on the packages and said, "Anything else? Delivery confirmation? Insurance?" And he looked relieved, so very relieved, when I said, "No, thank you." I managed to walk out of the post office at a rather sedentary pace, but the minute I was out the door, I ran for it. Note to self: platform heels are not made for running.