(photo from Kalamazoo Gazette)~
I woke up today planning on going to the post office and the grocery store. I bought some groceries on Monday but the cashier did not bag my Italian sausages for whatever reason so I had to go back today to get them (they gave me fresh ones). But this is not about that. It's about the post office.
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From almost the moment I woke up, I kept picturing the post office and what the line might be like and wondering how long it would take and even wondering if there would be a parking spot. I thought about it while I was eating lunch. I thought about it while I was in the shower. I thought about it while I was putting curlers in my hair. When I was almost ready to go out, I was drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette and I was thinking again about that post office line and just like that I said to myself, "Yeah, I'm not going there."
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See, I could picture the post office and picture the line, but I could not for the life of me picture myself in it. And just like that I decided to go to one of those shipping stores. There's a little one in the strip shopping center by my grocery store. I realized it would cost more because they have to pay rent and utilites there, but it just made way more sense to do that than stand in that line. And sure enough, I walked right in and had to wait maybe 3 minutes while the fellow made a few copies for a lady. 65¢ worth of copies for that lady and then it was my turn. My guess is I paid maybe $5 more than I might have paid at the post office, but I walked out of there thinking, no, knowing that it was well worth it.
6 comments:
I lament the loss of our post offices, which have all become substations (in our case in a drug store) with only ONE person serving and ONE cash register, instead of a bank of servers. As a result the line ups snake around the mail box island and into the aisles of the store and there is always a shuffle when shoppers want to get to the paper towels or though into the pharmacy. Annoying for everyone.
VioletSky,
~~That sounds horrible!
There are still actual post offices around, Violetsky. There's one across the street from where I work in the Canada Post building. Service isn't any quicker when there's a line-up though. And ya, Geewits, I'm totally down with paying a few extra bucks not to wait in line. That's why I always go to private labs to get bloodwork and stuff done. I pay my $10 and am in and out of there in 10 minutes as opposed to the 2 hour wait in the public labs.
Post offices at Christmas - the horror!
I thought to myself last night, "I wonder how long that Post Office line was for Gee?". haha Now I know you bypassed it altogether. :D
Xup,
~~That's a big difference and surely worth the cost.
Jazz,
~~No kidding. I could NOT talk myself into going there.
Carole,
~~And I bet you are not surprised.
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