Alternate titles:

• “What More Can They Do To Me?!” [great movie reference!]
• “I Can’t Catch A Break.” [shout out to Stephen]
• “A Day in the Life of…” [my own limited creative writing ability]

After miraculously escaping death by storm Thursday evening, (literally), and waking up from some seriously messed up dreams, my Friday could not get any worse. Or so I thought.

I found a slip of paper at the door from USPS saying I had a letter waiting for me. First problem – I wasn’t expecting any mail. Second problem – I apparently owed $0.20 on this unexpected letter. So my question – why would I waste gas to pick up a letter I wasn’t expecting and then pay a fee to receive it?

Here’s how it went down. I left work on break to pick up my favorite energy drink at the local gas station. (Call it Michael’s intuition, I was going to need that energy soon!) My next stop, the post office.

I’m in the left turn lane. I’m talking on my cell phone. I’m gulping my energy drink. I look up to see the passenger in the van in front of my car waving at me. (I must say, if I weren’t blind and could wear cool “normal people” sunglasses, this would be the time for me to do the movie thing and take them off to get a better view of the person waving at me. haha) A second pair of arms joins the distant greeting. Lo and behold, it was Carla and Michael (great name! 🙂 ), two awesome friends!

I make it to the post office parking lot and find two empty places, one being the prized, protected end slot. I park my San Fran hatchback and end my phone call graciously.

Insert the voice of Kiefer Sutherland – “This is the longest day of my life”.

While standing in line, I have a brief chat with Carla and Michael.

“Next!”

It was their turn up at the counter.

So I’m standing here in a full line of customers. There are two postal workers tending to the counter duties. Another worker is taking her precious time doing nothing. During this time to ponder the meaning of life we, the customers, were privileged with hearing a loud, pointless conversation happening behind the scenes. The lady in front of me (let’s call her Babs) started commenting on the verb usage; the man behind me (now known as Fred), questioning the lack of service at the counter. Babs looks at me and asks, “it’s alright to critique a conversation if we can hear it, right?” My answer, “absolutely!”

Let me say, at this point, Carla and Michael have long since been gone. (Kelly Clarkson reference, anyone?)

Fred waves for help. The worker doing nothing finally does something. She delegates to someone else.

After what seemed like hours in a stale government facility, we received one extra attendant to ease our waiting time. There were three of us in line waiting to pick up. Babs and I were next up to bat. Once we handed over our drab slips of paper, our attendants scurried off to the rewarding activity of acquiring our precious (and unexpected) mail.

Babs’ attendant saw something on her slip of paper about the package being for her son. Apparently she was picking it up because her son was a minor. The brilliant attendant asked her if the son worked in the mining industry. Seriously?! Minor – not miner. (Incidentally, you might want to check this out. It’s not as uncommon a problem as I originally thought. Topic found on Google) So, Babs proceeded to correct the attendant on his apparent noun confusion. (Could Babs possibly be an English major?)

My attendant returns after a vacation to Outer Mongolia (yet another movie reference?). To show my disdain for the imposed fee, I made sure I was prepared with the two dimes I owed. She proceeds to ask for the miniscule change. My hand pops out at lightning speed with the appropriate change. I grab my mail (a graduation announcement) and thank the attendant for her help.

On my way out I was joined by Babs.

Me: “We finally made it out of here!”

Babs: “And it’s actually still daylight.”

We both said a cordial farewell.

~~~

Tell me this – is the post office really the place for citizen bonding time?

~~~

But wait! There’s more.

I head over to my car to find this.

Insert – “What more can they do to me?!”

I attempted a driver door entry. Epic fail.

I was forced to enter my car through the passenger door.

I sped off slightly frustrated from the whole situation.

Moral of the story: Always have your trusty energy drink…and friends to vent to, post-trauma. (Thanks, Carla, Michael, & Stephen!)