Lesson learned: never, never go to the post office on the first business day after New Year’s. I hope the guy behind me in the 20-minute line (with zero sense of personal space) didn’t catch my cold and I sure hope I didn’t catch his.
One woman, turning away at last from the understaffed counter, looked for a sympathetic face in the crowd and exclaimed to me, “Twenty-five minutes in line!”
(I was nearly up, clearly I was getting off easy, myself.) More fun than worrying about the loud guy on the phone with the loud cough was getting a chance to answer her. Pointing at one of the boxes I was dealing with, I said that my five-year-old grandson had left his most favorite rock, his pet rock, at Gramma’s. It had sparkly bits. I had it wrapped up as pretty as I could in lots of colors and it was going home too now.
She loved it! It was exactly the relief she’d been looking for when she’d said that. Made her day, which made mine.
I didn’t say that it was Parker’s gold-panning souvenir, that he’d been told he could take one (just one!) home, although that does definitely make a good Californian story. But we were there when he got it, and I was here to get it back to him.