More Than Packages Are Damaged Here

Monday I had to rush a package to Genius. Seems in his flurry of packing during the one day he had between the end of his summer job, and leaving for college for his RA training...he forgot the charger cable to his Surface. How he got by without it for these two weeks is a mystery to me. A mystery which I probably do not want to solve.

He had sent me a text Sunday night. Not so much Sunday night as 12:06 Monday morning. A request for The Pony to check Genius's room for that cable plugged in by the bed, or laying nearby. Sounds simple, unless you know Genius and his stable of electronic gewgaws. I went to look, because, well, it was after 1:00 a.m. when I saw the text. Of course I couldn't find it. I don't even know what a Surface is.

The Pony found that item toot sweet. I stuffed it in my school bag, just in case Genius decided to play the emergency card. Which he did. Texted me again saying he really needed that cable. So I told him I'd put it in the mail after school. Genius the experienced eBay seller told me to put it in a padded fixed rate priority mail envelope. Uh huh.

I rushed to the post office (not the dead-mouse-smelling post office in Backroads proper, because I didn't have time nor gas money nor desire to go there) while The Pony was examining blood spatter at his new after-school club for science, technology, engineering, and math. Okay. It was not so much BLOOD spatter as CORN SYRUP AND RED FOOD DYE spatter.

No one was in the lesser post office when I got there. I milled around looking at the packaging that took up one wall. I was not finding what my Genius sent me for. There was one employee working. I'm going to call him Slow Mike. No offense to the slow. Or to Mikes.

"I'm looking for a fixed rate priority mail envelope with padding." I saw where his eyes looked. There were none in that whole shelf deal.

"I don't see any."

"Oh." I went back to browsing, looking for something that might substitute. There was a little box that would hold the charger. It might rattle around inside, because I was NOT going to buy a roll of bubble wrap at the post office. You'd think Slow Mike could have offered me some of those shredded envelopes and magazine particles missing from the mail I get in a plastic bag with a sticker that says it arrived that way.

But Slow Mike was not interested in me. The customer. A man came in looking lost. He wandered around the packaging, too, and grabbed something not fixed rate, and went to the end of the counter to stuff an object inside. He was from the Slow family, too, from the looks of his endeavors.

"My son said to mail it in a padded envelope. Is there anything else that could work?"

"If you let me get rid of this guy, I'll look in the back. I thought we had some." Let the record show that the new guy who had wandered in did not take offense to being "gotten rid of" at all. Slow Mike took at least five minutes to send a registered letter for him. Then he disappeared into the back. Then he sprinted across the door to the other side of the back. Then he asked somebody something back there. Then he came out with an envelope. "Found one." He put it on the counter.

Oh, dear. It was white, as thin as a working girl's slip, with a lining of half-bubble wrap. I put the charger in there, and it clunked on the counter. This envelope was like a 9.5 x 11 manilla. Except white and dainty. I had no choice. I sealed the top. Slow Mike was fiddling with some electronic data entry.

"Here. I have the address on this note card. If you have some clear tape, you can just stick it on the envelope." Let the record show that Val has excellent printing penmanship, and is often told that she should be a draftsman. Or draft horse. One of those two. Slow Mike was not pickin' up what Val was layin' down. As in, he was not picking up that note card to affix it to the envelope. He looked really confused. Even for a slow guy. He pushed a little sticker at me. Like you might get at a convention, that says, "Hello. My Name is ___________." Only it just said "To:" and "From:"

"Do you want me to copy this address onto that sticker?"

"Yeah. That would be easier." In the meantime, Slow Mike took my address note card and started typing in data. "That will be $5.80." I paid him. He even gave me the correct change. Then he held out the note card. "Which address is right? There are two."

Paula Deen in my front yard eating a lobster tail! How can a postal worker not understand how addresses work in a post office? I have taken the civil service test for mail carrier. Piece of cake. You have to put addresses in order. And the first thing that little exam preparation book tells you is that you read the address from the bottom up. General to specific.

"There are not two addresses. See? The envelope will go to this city. Then to this street. Then to this dorm. Then to my son. It all belongs there." Slow Mike grunted. I stifled down my disgruntledness. I got that card back from him as soon as he was done entering what was probably the wrong info in the system. I moved over to copy down the address on the convention sticker. The guy from the other end of the counter moved over for service.

"I want to send this to India."

"Um. Just a minute. I'm not sure how to do that." Slow Mike got on the microphone and called for a lady from the back. She came out. Apparently Slow Junior had not packed his item correctly after all this time. The lady, let's call her Smarty, squeezed Slow Junior's package. NOT LIKE THAT! This is not a pr0n flick. No boom chicka wow wow.

"This is a cell phone."

"Uh huh. I sold it to a guy in India. He already put the money in my PayPal account. Now I need to send it to him."

"This is a cell phone. It has a lithium battery."

"I don't know if it has a lithium battery. Let me call my son."

"All cell phones have lithium batteries. We can't ship them by air."

"Then how will it get to India?"

"I don't think we can send it there by ground." Maybe she shouldn't be called Smarty.

"I'll take the battery out. Let me call my son and see how."

It was like watching a tennis match. Not at the championship level. Slow Mike's head must have been hurting. "Are you done with that?" He reached for my label. Then he kind of stood there, watching the Great India Phone Caper unfold. I had to get back to school to pick up The Pony.

I wanted to back out, keeping my eye on Slow Mike. But I didn't. I'm on blood thinners you know. So I couldn't risk a collision with another patron. I really hope Slow Mike put that sticker on the right package.

I don't want Genius's Surface cable flying to India.