Trials and Tribulations with the United States Postal Service
So I'd run out of stamps and decided to stop by the post office on my walk home for work on Tuesday to buy a new roll. There's no line at the vending machine, so I go there instead of the window. It's a little scary putting $40 into a vending machine, but I've done it before so I wasn't worried. Silly me.
I put my two $20 bills in. I select B2. I hear my $3 change fall into the coin return. I don't hear my stamps fall. I reach in and feel around. No stamps. I get down on my knees so I can see better. Definitely no stamps. Well, shit.
There is a postal worker emptying a nearby drop box, so I go over and tell him my dillema. Could he help me get my stamps? He walks over and looks in where the stamps should be. He hits the front of the machine and looks again. Still no stamps. He goes and gets me a form to fill out to ask for a refund. I just want the stamps, but whatever, as long as I'm not out $37.
He says he'll be right back. I fill out my form and wait. He doesn't return. I try going to a window instead because the form says to return it to a salesperson. The woman at the window looks at me increduosly. "37 dollars? That's a lot of money. This will have to be looked into. But you have to take this to window 1. Window 1 handles all these type of things."
So I go wait in line at Window 1. But by the time I get to the front it after 6. I try to explain my problem to the guy at the window, and he just tells me I'll have to come back in the morning. Awesome.
So I come back at 8 am the next day. And wait in line. And wait. I finally get to talk to some one. Oh, Eddie was waiting for you last night, she says. (Um, what? Where? It would have been nice if he'd helped me then.) Was he just going to give you the stamps? Yes, I lie, as I'm not sure who Eddie is. I just want my stamps! She takes my form and disappears for a while. She comes back and tells me some one will meet me over by the gray door to help me.
I walk across the room to the gray door, and a man who appears to be the manager comes out with a set of keys. He takes me over to the machine and proceeds to open it. And there is my roll of stamps, stuck halfway down the shoot. There are about three smaller packages of stamps behind it. Gee, I wish you'd told us about this last night so we could have put the machine out of service and these other people could have gotten their stamps too. (Um, I told three people. What else was I supposed to do?) He hands me my stamps, and I go on my merry way, happy not to be out $37.
Close Encounter of the Subway Kind
Wednesday night I went out to dinner with some friends. (Side note: we had the best host ever. We had to wait so long for a table, partly because some of our friends were late, that he gave us a round of tequila shots, an order of guacamole and a bowl of queso.) Several of us walk back to the subway. There is a homeless man asking if he can squeeze in behind one of us to get into the subway. Nope, sorry. I was the last one through, and he squeezed in behind me anyway! This wouldn't have been so unsettling if this entrance had had regular turnstiles. But it had those revolving-doors-made-out-of-bars entrances instead. So for a few seconds I was unwillingly in a very small, enclosed space with a complete stranger. I wouldn't want to be that close to most of you, dear readers, and I a) like you b)know you're not going to try to touch me inappropriately or steal my wallet.
Have You Ever Loved a Woman ...
I have had this song stuck in my head off and on for a week now. I blame the person who started blasting it on the bus as soon as we hit the D.C. city limits last weekend. Please get out my head now, Bryan Adams. Thanks.
So I'd run out of stamps and decided to stop by the post office on my walk home for work on Tuesday to buy a new roll. There's no line at the vending machine, so I go there instead of the window. It's a little scary putting $40 into a vending machine, but I've done it before so I wasn't worried. Silly me.
I put my two $20 bills in. I select B2. I hear my $3 change fall into the coin return. I don't hear my stamps fall. I reach in and feel around. No stamps. I get down on my knees so I can see better. Definitely no stamps. Well, shit.
There is a postal worker emptying a nearby drop box, so I go over and tell him my dillema. Could he help me get my stamps? He walks over and looks in where the stamps should be. He hits the front of the machine and looks again. Still no stamps. He goes and gets me a form to fill out to ask for a refund. I just want the stamps, but whatever, as long as I'm not out $37.
He says he'll be right back. I fill out my form and wait. He doesn't return. I try going to a window instead because the form says to return it to a salesperson. The woman at the window looks at me increduosly. "37 dollars? That's a lot of money. This will have to be looked into. But you have to take this to window 1. Window 1 handles all these type of things."
So I go wait in line at Window 1. But by the time I get to the front it after 6. I try to explain my problem to the guy at the window, and he just tells me I'll have to come back in the morning. Awesome.
So I come back at 8 am the next day. And wait in line. And wait. I finally get to talk to some one. Oh, Eddie was waiting for you last night, she says. (Um, what? Where? It would have been nice if he'd helped me then.) Was he just going to give you the stamps? Yes, I lie, as I'm not sure who Eddie is. I just want my stamps! She takes my form and disappears for a while. She comes back and tells me some one will meet me over by the gray door to help me.
I walk across the room to the gray door, and a man who appears to be the manager comes out with a set of keys. He takes me over to the machine and proceeds to open it. And there is my roll of stamps, stuck halfway down the shoot. There are about three smaller packages of stamps behind it. Gee, I wish you'd told us about this last night so we could have put the machine out of service and these other people could have gotten their stamps too. (Um, I told three people. What else was I supposed to do?) He hands me my stamps, and I go on my merry way, happy not to be out $37.
Close Encounter of the Subway Kind
Wednesday night I went out to dinner with some friends. (Side note: we had the best host ever. We had to wait so long for a table, partly because some of our friends were late, that he gave us a round of tequila shots, an order of guacamole and a bowl of queso.) Several of us walk back to the subway. There is a homeless man asking if he can squeeze in behind one of us to get into the subway. Nope, sorry. I was the last one through, and he squeezed in behind me anyway! This wouldn't have been so unsettling if this entrance had had regular turnstiles. But it had those revolving-doors-made-out-of-bars entrances instead. So for a few seconds I was unwillingly in a very small, enclosed space with a complete stranger. I wouldn't want to be that close to most of you, dear readers, and I a) like you b)know you're not going to try to touch me inappropriately or steal my wallet.
Have You Ever Loved a Woman ...
I have had this song stuck in my head off and on for a week now. I blame the person who started blasting it on the bus as soon as we hit the D.C. city limits last weekend. Please get out my head now, Bryan Adams. Thanks.
