A trip to the post office

Going to the post office on December the 15th is foolish, I know!! But that is where I found myself today because, obviously, I had some stuff that had to go out in the mail! And I needed to get some stamps for those Christmas cards that are going to get made, addressed and delivered before Christmas!

Anyway, I went to the little Lake Worth office because it's closer, smaller, and I thought I would have better luck there. I should have known something was amiss when I pulled up and counted 5 cars!! Instead, I couldn't believe my good fortune at such a low turn-out!! I loaded up my 3 packages and went inside to find a dark post office!!

Not to be deterred, I headed over to the next closest post office and was not at all surprised to find the parking lot to be packed!! This is more like it, I thought!! I went in and immediately saw the people, as they were right in front of the door. I looked to my left toward the end of the line and saw about 8-10 more people before the line ended!! I smiled and got in line! There were approximately 30 people ahead of me and pretty much everyone was thrilled to be there!!

Here's a sampling of what I saw/heard/observed:

* Cute, newly married couple both with strawberry blond hair, mailing presents to her parents and nieces/nephews (pure speculation!)

* Older, grandma type ahead of them that received a call on her cell about 3 minutes into my wait. We got to hear all about her very red, puffy eyes and the medication she was taking for that, that "Kenny" was having surgery on his gallbladder and something about his liver, and her version of the local forecast, including yesterday's report and what should happen today.

* An obscene amount of ear hair in one gentleman who I heard say more than once, "my favorite memory about that was . . . "

* The nice young girl in front of ear-hair-man who very patiently listened to his stories while wearing her lavender pleather jacket with matching pink toboggan and purse.

My favorite happening at the post office occurred when it got close to closing time and an employee asked those of us who were not actually in the office part yet to come in and wrap the line around so that they could close/lock the doors. I hope I can accurately put this into words how this happened. But anyway, another lady and I were the closest into the office so we just kind of got behind the people inside the door and probably 5 people got behind us. The lady behind them must not have been paying attention, but she looks up and she's at the door to the post office and she looks at the lady in front of me like "what do you think you're doing? I'm in line here??" So the nice lady tries to explain that the employee lady asked us to move in so they could close the door and that the line is now "back there." So the lady says, "Well I'm in line and I've been here all this time and that is NOT the line back there!" So, nice lady goes through it again and the not-so-nice lady isn't buying it!!

The nice lady turns around and looks at me like UH-OH and I'm thinking that I'll just let her in front of me when the time comes if it will keep the peace. I really don't want the lady to cause a scene - it's just not that big of a deal!!

(easy for me to say - I didn't have my kids so I could have waited all day!!)

About that time, I feel a tap on my shoulder and look to see a woman 2-3 people back. She was well put together with a nice black leather hat and she calmly says - Don't you let that woman in front of you - the line is back here and if she's gonna try to cut, there's gonna be a throw-down in here!!!"

I'm like - uummm, ok??!!?! I'm thinking we definitely don't want any throw-downs in here!! I mean, I don't really know exactly what that means but it doesn't sound good!!

As I stand there pondering my options, thankfully the post office lady came over and sent the rest of the line, with the not-so-nice lady as their leader into the office behind our line!!

We all breathed a big sigh of relief and everyone lived happily ever after!!

The End!!