Post office roulette

In addition to shopping today, there was a significant amount of cleaning, laundry and bill paying that went on. Now most of you are probably all, "bill paying?...geez suck it up jackass, get with the times and just pay bills online, like the rest of the known universe." I would love to do that...I really would"

but...

Having formerly worked for the #2 bank on the planet, I have seen and worked with the people in charge of auto bill payment. To be perfectly honest, I just don't trust it. It's like trusting the 9th grade boys with the frog in biology class...it's just not gonna turn out good.

I can remember calling over to Online banking when I worked for Bank of the Universe and explaining to other reps that I had a customer on the line who set up for all of his bills to be automatically paid. Nine times out of ten everything was fine. Nine times out of ten. However I am he of little faith and God hates me. I also have never seen a half full glass and I live paycheck to paycheck most of the time so I just can't trust that the people in charge of this so-called wondrous automatic bill pay, are smarter than I. Yes, writing bills out is time consuming and if you have as many bills as I do, expensive. However, I sleep soundly knowing that my envelopes are in the mail and that they will eventually get where they need to go.

Which brings me to my next point.

The Post Office.

I love going to the post office. It's very much like a box of chocolates, "you never know whut you gonna git." For me the thrill is standing in line and trying to figure out which dedicated and loyal government employee is going to get to help me with my postal needs. Sometimes as I stand in line, I hum the theme to the old Tonight show while I'm waiting. I imagine the clerk who gets to help me, walks out from behind the curtain ala Johnny Carson, R.I.P.

Today was not that bad. I had a slight miscalculation and thought I was going to get the battle hard, veteran of foreign wars clerk. These guys kill me. They always ask me if I have anything perishable or dangerous or explosive in my packages....yadda yadda yadda, just like at the airport. I know it's in my best interest to be polite, so I never toy with them. Secretly...they hate this. They look at me like I am sending candy & stolen kisses to my homo of a boyfriend even though nothing could be further from the truth and even if I did have a boyfriend, how exactly does one wrap a stolen kiss?

Anyway, I was certain I was going to get Sergeant Rock, when all of a sudden the nitwit infront of me bobbled and dropped all of his things on the floor in front of the good sergeant. While I wouldn't want to be in that mans shoes, I was glad to be able to have Pam D. serve my postal needs. I am under some misconception about standard mail being cheaper than first class. Not only but after my visit to the po today, I have found I am helpless to the postal clerk Jedi mind trick. I told Pam I was shipping two packages to MN. Two very long overdue Christmas gifts...(alright...alright, sue me I have been busy) Pam tells me that First Class will probably be cheaper.

First class will probably be cheaper. Now even as I mull this over in my mind, I can't for the life of me conceive how this would be possible. As Pam is doing the calculations, I utter, "Uh...Ok" I'm on the ropes, she has me where she wants me. After the final tabulation, Pam tells me, "standard will be $6.55 and First Class will be $9.38. " Before I can even stop the words from coming out of my mouth, I was all, "that's great, let's go First Class." I completed the transaction and walked out the living embodiment of the word, hoodwinked. It was only $2 but it's the principle of the thing that gets me.

In retrospect, I'm okay with paying a few bucks extra than having to talk my way out of a bare knuckles boxing match with Sergeant Rock.

This town is nothing but savages....

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