Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

Christmas time is here again, bringing with it the smell of pine and gingerbread, twinkling lights, the rustle of wrapping paper, the beauty of newly-fallen snow and the dreaded visit to the post office. Yes, as everyone who has friends or relatives living out of state knows, the post office is not the place one wants to be during the holiday season. It is also the place one can't avoid if one wants to get those Christmas gifts sent on time.
Well, let's just talk about the words "on time". I suspect that "on time" is an abstract concept to the U.S. Postal Service rather than a reachable reality. I base this on an experience I had with a Christmas package that traveled up and down the east coast several times before arriving at its intended destination of Connecticut. On the last swing of this postal pendulum, it took only three days to get from Virginia (I don't know what it was doing in Virginia) to Connecticut, thus being "on time" if one disregards the fact that it had been mailed five weeks earlier from West Palm Beach, Florida. The post office also disregarded the fact that I had mailed it "priority mail". I have since learned that "priority mail" means the customer pays extra for his package to be one of the first to be used to prop open the mail room door and forgotten about.
But I could take the late deliveries. I could ignore the ubiquitous photos of wanted criminals tacked to the wall. I could, possibly, learn to endure those self -stick stamps that stick to everything else on their way to the envelope. I could get used to the absence of any parking spots within a half mile of the post office. All of these things are minor irritations when compared with the lines. The last three times I've walked into the post office (and I'm not making this up), a postal employee working behind the counter has looked at me and put out his little "closed" sign. The last time, as he put out his rotten little sign, he winked at me and said, "Lunch break!" It was 10:15 in the morning. Visions of giving him something to chew on danced through my head.
However, in all due honesty and fairness, I cannot blame the slowness of the lines on the postal employees alone. No, they have help and lots of it from the postal customers. Every drone, every thoughtless imbecile, every mother with three undisciplined kids, every idiot who can't figure out how to write an address on a box - arrives at the post office ten minutes before I do.
Think I'm being paranoid? During my last ill-fated visit to mail a package, a man stepped up to the counter with about twenty-five letters, purchased stamps for them, and proceeded to hold up the entire line while he affixed each stamp neatly and precisely on an envelope. Meanwhile, the person (and I use this term loosely) who had been waiting on him seized the opportunity for a quick "lunch break". As we waited, a mother gazed into space as her darling son detached the chain link line-divider and proceeded to chain whip the legs of the waiting customers. His cries of delight nearly drowned out the sound of an argument occurring at the only other open station where two customers were debating whether or not it should cost $3.59 to mail a book to Kenosha.
But that wait was a piece of cake compared to the traffic jam I experienced last year when a little old woman tried to mail a package which was held together with what appeared to be toilet paper. The counter person had to rewrap the entire package after explaining, in a loud voice, why the toilet paper tape would not suffice. When her package was finally rewrapped and taped, the little old lady decided she would pay her $33.82 shipping charge with change. Exact change. From the bottom of her purse. Which she could not see. Coin by coin. Her quavering hands kept dropping change. "Don't worry, young man," she smiled, "I have plenty of time."
So you can see why I view with aversion the annual mailing of of my Christmas packages to the members of my family who now live in California. Maybe this year I'll bring along a book to read while I wait. Better yet, it might be a good idea to deliver my gifts in person. After all, it only takes five days to drive to California.