P.O. also Stands for Post Office

In the play "Waiting for Godot," two characters wait for a third dude, named Godot, who's still a no-show by the end of the play. In college, they told us this was an existentialist metaphor for God... But I now think it was a reference to dealing with my local Post Office.

You see, Saturday, I had a package to pick up. A little pink slip tacked to my door indicating I had to sign for the thing in person. So, okay-- I'd pick it up after work right?

Nope! That branch of the Post Office closes at 4 pm. And I leave work at 5.

Well, that's all right, I figured. I'm flexible. Before work then?

In print so small dust-mites would need high-powered reading glasses just to see it, the slip said packages could only be picked up after 10am.

Righty, then! So Saturdays.... How 'bout Saturdays?

Well, on Saturdays, it told me, I could pick up the package between the convenient hours of 10:00 am and 10:07 am...

Oops, I'm sorry-- "10am to noon."

But honestly-- as far as windows of opportunity go, that window is about equivalent to the side vent on a MicroMachines Mini Cooper. Driven by the dust mite with the high-powered reading glasses.

Now, this past Saturday, I had a hair appointment at... 10:30am. Yeppers, smack dab in the middle of the Lilliputian Window of Opportunity!

So with no other recourse, I went to the Post Office at 9:30am with my package slip in hand and hope in my heart.

There was one teller open, and I was the fifth person in line. There was:

• A tall thin man with a goatee in front of me....
  
• A woman with dreds in front of him...
  
• A large, hairy spectacled man with a South Park t-shirt and carrying a tower of packages, who was in front of her...
  
• And an elderly woman who was first in line.

The elderly woman, she wanted a Money Order. She'd never purchased one before and wasn't quite sure what it entailed, or really, if this was even what she wanted. She might have wanted a wire transfer. Or a Siberian husky. Or a cafe latte no milk.

She and the teller discussed this with the sort of detailed analysis you'd find in a university coffeehouse after a poetic reading. The nuances, the details... rehashed and reexamined. I was reminding myself how I once didn't know how to fill out a Money Order, either, and that this woman was probably someone's beloved grandma, and that patience is a virtue.

"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, rummaging through her purse. "You know, I don't have any cash on me. Do you take checks?"

Grandma... beloved grandma... I chanted to myself.

So she started rooting around for her checkbook. "Who do I make this out to?" She had to find a pen now.

The guy with the goatee-- seeing some time to kill-- started talking to the lady with the dreds. He indicated he was there because he was a victim of identity theft and somebody had been forwarding his mail to an unknown, unauthorized place.

The woman in the dreds, in turn, said she was there because she'd sent a package which never arrived which she needed to trace.

Both of these issues didn't sound exactly easily resolved.

Grandma, meanwhile, was making out the check, when the teller said they'd need her ID. Which, of course, required more rooting in her purse. I zoned out for five minutes and looked back and she was still writing that check.

Grandma... beloved, dear old grandma.... I kept telling myself.

Finally, finally Grandma was on her way, and the hairy South Park guy was up.

Package after package was being processed with the kind of individualized attention airport cavity searches receive. I looked at my watch and saw ten minutes had passed. The line was now out the door.

Meanwhile, the woman in the dreds had gotten in and out of line about three times so far. She was filling out forms and getting back to the head of the line. Filling out other forms and getting back in line. Talking to someone in the back mailroom who was afraid to come face us, and then getting back to the front of the line.

I was wondering if I died whether anybody would notice, or they'd just dust off the cobwebs.

Once the South Park guy had officially mailed a package to everyone on Ebay-- and gotten cash back via a Debit transaction-- the lady in the dreds was finally up. She needed to trace her package. And no, she didn't have her receipt.

"Well, I'd left it in the car and my husband ripped it up and threw it out," she said.

"So you don't have a tracking number?"

"No."

"But you want to trace your package?"

"Yes."

And the clerk sent her to go fill out some more forms. I looked at my watch. I had ten minutes.

The goatteed man was trying to figure out where his mail had gone. "I was in Florida, and while I was away someone else came in and got my mail sent to another address. I want to know how that happened."

"It was you," the teller said.

"It wasn't me, I was in Florida. Wouldn't I know if I had changed the address on my mail?"

"Well, then you have a twin! Because it was you who changed the address."

This conversation made the lady cowering in back actually decide to join us. Waiting on customers who were now lined up around the block wasn't apparently as much of a priority as giving witness testimony. "Oh, it was definitely you!" she proclaimed. "If it wasn't, well, he looked just like you."

"I was on a trip!" the man reiterated.

"But, see, I remember you saying something about going on a trip soon," insisted the woman from the back.

This was about the time Rod Serling came in.

Now, you're probably wondering whether I ever made it out of there in time. And the answer is, yes, in fact, I did-- by sheer luck alone.

But the fact remains:

Somewhere out there, a package is being traced with no tracking number... Dopplegangers are out there changing forwarding addresses willy-nilly... And how much do you want to bet, there are people from Saturday still waiting in that line?

Godot has nothing on the US Postal Service.

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