I had to go to the post office today. I didn’t want to, but I had to. The government made me.
You see, they raised the postal rates again and I got stuck with almost a whole roll of the old stamps, so I needed about a hundred one-cent stamps to make up the difference. I’m going to spend the next six months putting two stamps on all of my envelopes. Thanks, guys. Really.
Now, I usually try to avoid the post office whenever possible, and when I do have to go, I go to this tiny little one on an unpopular side street of an unfashionable neighborhood. Usually, it’s much less crowded.
Usually.
I take my place in the line, which stretches all the way through the lobby, outside, and along the front of the building. It seems to be moving slowly, and I begin to wonder which of the inane United States Postal Service rules is holding things up. My guess is that someone tried to slip by a package with Scotch tape or masking tape on it. They should know better.
Eventually, the winding line moves me into the lobby where I find that, in its infinite wisdom, the government has chosen to staff the office with only two employees. Nice piece of planning, that. Probably a rule about that too.
Behind the counter to the right I find one of the gentlemen I’m accustomed to seeing here. I’ll call him “Bob” because…well, I kind of like the sound of “Postman Bob.” It sounds happy. Right now, however, Bob is more gruff and less happy and seems to be having something of a bad day.
On the left is perhaps one of the friendliest people I have ever seen.
She is a blaze of color behind the counter, long hair flowing down over her bright blue United States Postal Service vest and flaming red shirt, her face lit with a broad, sunny smile. In most locations, she would be a hippie. In a Disney movie, she would be ringed by little birds flying around her head, singing joyfully. Here, however, she is a postal worker. And an extremely happy one at that.
Currently she is helping a gentleman select stamps from the new Rodgers & Hammerstein collection. As I watch, I’m struck by the thought that there is really nothing she’d rather be doing. I’m pretty sure I’ve found what’s holding up the line.
To her left, bitter Bob grunts, hands a customer a sheet of the new 34 cent stamps, and slams the drawer closed with a little more force than strictly necessary.
I’m only at the front of the line for a moment when L’il Miss Sunshine turns to me.
“Can I help you?” she beams.
“Actually, I need a sheet of one-cent stamps.”
Her face lights up. “Sure thing!”
“Do they come self-adhesive?” I add.
A cloud rolls across her face, briefly hiding her smile, but she recovers quickly.
“Yes, they do, but I don’t have any. They don’t give me the good stuff. I don’t even have the new 34-cent stamps.”
She stops moving and smiles. Why is she looking at me like she’s done? Clearly, I’m missing something. I turn and look at Bob, who has been handing them out the whole time I’ve been here (Did he just snarl at me?) and back to my happy friend. My confusion must be evident, because she glances toward Bitter Bob and explains, “He might have some. We’re in different lines, you see.”
Uh, no. I don’t see. Not at all.
I look into her altogether-too-happy eyes, turn to look at Bob, then to the line leading out the door, and back into her eager gaze. We’re talking about her co-worker. Fewer than three feet away. If she were to yawn and stretch, she might inadvertently hit him in the face. He’s that close.
“Are you saying,” I begin, “that I have to go back to the end of the line, and hope that next time through I end up at Bob’s counter?”
I give her a look that I hope conveys my utter disbelief.
In response, she blinks.
She leans forward and looks at the line. Then at me. Then at Bob, and finally back at me. Apparently I’m asking her to break the rules. Clearly, she’s conflicted.
“Well, maybe…” she says, “if I asked him…” She pauses. The mere thought makes her uncomfortable. “Well….” She looks around the room — searching, I can only imagine, for some hidden supervisor — “…he might be willing to trade me a sheet of regular stamps for the adhesive ones.”
Unbelievable. All I want are a few lousy stamps, and suddenly I find myself in the midst of some covert merchandise exchange and illegal stamp procurement scheme.
She waits nervously, stamps in hand, for Bob to finish with his customer. As soon as he does she leans over and softly, timidly, asks him if he would please trade a sheet of regular stamps for a sheet of the self-adhesive ones.
Bob grunts, most definitely in disapproval. I get the impression he would just as soon have smacked her upside the head as hand over the stamps, but hand them over he does.
She retreats to the safety of her own space, and radiating pure happiness, hands the stamps to me. The relief is visible in her face. Crisis averted.
“Anything else I can do for you?” she chimes.
“No, that will definitely do it, thanks.”
I think about what just happened, about the crazy “separate line” rule I’ve just encountered, the radically different attitudes of Sunshine and Bitter Bob, and the fact that I went to the post office and almost returned without stamps.
I make a New Year’s resolution to avoid this place whenever possible, and head for the door.
“Have a nice year.” I add, over my shoulder.
“Best one yet!” she replies.
And you know? If she has her way, it will be.
Maybe I’m on a tangent here, but this is the reason that government embraced the Internet early, to avoid all-too-familiar scenes like this. Too bad it didn’t pan out. In any case Roger, my PO had 1-cent self-adhesive stamps in the machines in the lobby. Sure, I had to buy 100 to accommodate the twelve 33-cent stamps I had left, but, and your column confirms it, I think it was 88 extra cents well spent.
Damn. If I’d only had the foresight to call and say, “Hey Joe, your post office got one-cent stamps?” Better yet, I could probably have bought your other 88 for what, a buck, buck-fifty?
I still can’t believe your post office has machines in the lobby. Someone was knifed and killed in the lobby of mine.
Hmm…maybe I should rethink this post office thing altogether…
Roger…you still actually mail things?
Wow…that is so…so…..retro.
You can buy stamps at most grocery stores now.
Plus, most grocery stores have a pharmacy. Some even have banks, video rental and film developing. It’s sort of like old west days where there was one “general store” in town. Then it all spit off into specialty places.
Maybe we’re returning to the general stores of old.
Um, yes Jack, I mail them to you,remember?
All y’all don’t know much ’bout rural Carolina, do yuh? With y’all’s fancy dee-partment stores and what not…