I finally have a permanent mailing address again, for the website, etc. If you recall, I threw a hissy-fit inside the local post office about a year ago, and have never set foot in the place again. That’ll show ’em! I told the postmaster she could stick it up her ass, turned on my heel, and exited in a dramatic fashion. If I’d been wearing a scarf, I would’ve tossed it over my shoulder, for emphasis.
Yeah, it felt good. But as I was making my way to the car, I realized I might’ve shot myself in the foot. What would I do now? How would I receive my weekly advertising packets from GoDaddy? And my Domino’s coupons addressed to “Boxholder?” This is important stuff.
But I’m back in business, and check out the name of the so-called town where I’ll be picking up my mail. The new address is at the bottom of the page. Heh. That post office is literally a mobile home. And not a very well-maintained mobile home, either. But, they have boxes available for rent, and I took ’em up on it.
I’m trying to maintain… but they’re already pissing me off. Tell me if I’m the problem.
I went over there on Monday, before I left for work. It’s difficult to carve out time for such things, but I made arrangements, and went to rent a new P.O. Box. Closed! Freaking Columbus Day! Seriously?! That’s not a real holiday. Grrr… My blood pressure was on the upswing before we’d even gotten started.
A couple of days later I returned, and it was pouring rain. I ran up on the rickety deck of the mobile home, my feet nearly flew out from under me, and I was muttering profanities as I entered the trailer.
But I needed to be nice… I told the woman at the window what I wanted, and she handed me a multi-page application. Then she informed me I’d need two forms of identification. Isn’t that racist? I thought asking for ID is racist? One could be a driver’s license, she said, but the other one had to be an item from a bizarre list of things, which she indicated on the app. Things like rental agreement, or mortgage paperwork. WTF??
So, I had to leave, once again, with my business still not completed. You see how it goes? It’s bullshit. I ran back to my car, through the horizontal rain.
Finally, on my third visit to the camper (or whatever), I was able to get my new address. And the woman was trying her hardest to complicate matters further. Are they trained to do that? “Will anybody else be picking up mail from this box? If so, I’ll need their ID, as well…” Also, something about packages. Who the hell knows? But I frustrated her by keeping it simple. I could tell it made her nervous, this straightforward approach, but we got ‘er done.
So, tell me… am I the unreasonable one? Some of you have said I’m too tightly wound, and full of rage. But why does everything have to be so goddamn difficult? Why so much red tape? It’s unnecessary. I thought they were going to ask me to roll the tip of my penis across an ink blotter, and provide a legible dick-print, before they handed over the keys. It’s stoopid.
Another thing that annoys me: Those fancy new self-serve soda machines that offer something like a hundred options. They have two of them at Moe’s, where I had lunch with the younger hooligan on Saturday.
It’s not a good idea to give the general population more choices. It really isn’t. People are dumbasses, generally speaking, and just stand in front of those things with their mouths hanging open. And they have a touch screen, which still befuddles a good 40% of humanity, even in 2014. Just push the Coke logo, asshole, and put your cup under there!! It’s maddening.
Also, I went to get a haircut on Friday, and walked out of the first place. There was nobody there, the joint was totally empty. But they asked me to sign in, and said they’d be right with me. So, I took a seat and waited.
And some woman arrived and told the person behind the desk she wanted to bring her mother in, who was in her 90s and in a wheelchair. She can’t move her neck on account of the fusion, or the bunching, or something. I wasn’t paying close attention. But a crowd formed, and every employee was now involved in this conversation. “We could wheel her in backwards, maybe, and set her up at Station 1… What do you think, Tina? Or maybe send her in on a zip-line of some sort…”
It went on and on, and there were five women involved. All yammering simultaneously. I was grinding my molars, and finally had enough. I got up and left. Nobody protested, or even noticed, probably.
I went to another haircut place nearby, and the woman who worked there had a tiny dog in the shop with her. The thing weighed eight pounds, she said, and it lunged at me, and tried to bite me. Twice. The little bastard doesn’t know how close it came to being booted straight through the 1974 paneling on the rear wall of that dump.
Finally… on Sunday Toney and I went to see Gone Girl. I hadn’t been to a movie in God knows how long, but it was a cold and rainy day… so we went. And a couple sat right behind us, even though the place was half-empty, and never stopped eating. Through the entire movie they were eating, and making mind-bogglingly stupid comments.
There was much slurping, and chomping. It sounded like a goddamn horse going to town on a basket of carrots back there. And they didn’t understand the movie, were constantly confused… I was about to come out of my skin. It’s not exactly an art film, you lip-smacking idiots!
So, tell me: is it just me? I reject the notion, of course, but maybe you have a different view on the matter.
Have a great day, my friends!
I’ll see you again soon.
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A Few Quick Things, vol. 48
The P.O. Box deal comes out to – “it’s a post-911 world”.
I agree with you. Those newfangled soda machines with about a thousand choices are indeed quite racist. Maybe I should go back and read the post more carefully….
I didn’t get the latest installment of the “Super-Secret Friday Update.” Did one go out?
I checked all the Gmail folders, including Drafts and Sent Mail (because it’s the wild and wacky world wide web) and came up empty.
On the plus side, I did discover in my Spam folder that I’m about to inherit $85 million from a Nigerian prince and a secret formula that will add length and girth to my penis (about time).
So, not a total loss.
No Friday update. I made the mistake of trying to get a quick haircut before I started writing.
When there’s no Friday update, Our Dear Leader should send out a Friday update saying “there’s no Friday update today.” So I’m not left frozen all day with anticipation, and spend the rest of the weekend checking my spam folder, or wondering what I had previously written on the comments boards to enrage Jeff so much as to banish me.
I feel bad for real Nigerian princes since they can’t find a beneficiary.
Nor, apparently, a girthy penis, unless I’m conflating again.
jtb
But, if a guy buys and uses that “enlargement” cream, wouldn’t it make their hands bigger, too?
One word: latex-free examination gloves.
.
I’ve always wanted to be a Harlem Globetrotter but couldn’t palm the ball. Now I just need to figure out how not to be slow, chubby, old and white.
John
The fact that we live in a post-911 world is also the reason why you need to sign in before getting a haircut. They need to check your name against an FBI watch-list. Giving a terrorist a haircut is a crime (aiding and abetting the enemy).
Aiding and Shampooing the Enemy
The Post Office is closed on Columbus Day?! Is this new, when did they start this? 😉
About 1492. There are a total of 10 national holidays the post office and banks close for.
These fake holidays are not on my radar screen. I don’t spring out of bed and yell, “Yes! It’s finally Columbus Day!!” It didn’t occur to me, until I saw the empy parking lot. As I said before, it’s bullshit.
In Seattle Columbus day is now Indigenous Peoples Day. Local native American’s are pleased, Italian’s are pissed and everybody else is just going to work except government employees who have yet another day to officially do nothing,
Yeah, it’s IP Day to the city council and a few well-wishers. If it were really IP day, the casinos would be closed.
Jeff, had you been trying to secure a mail box in Manhattan, you’d have known you were screwed. I was there for a Columbus Day parade (I didn’t actually travel there for that purpose; it was a co-inkidink) and it’s a big fucking deal. At least it was in the 90s.
jtb
Still is, jtb. All of the parades in Manhattan are big deals. Before I close my peepers for good, I reallyw ant to see the Halloween parade in the Village.
madz . . .
I’m from the provinces, way out here in the Great Pacific Northwest, and we don’t think of ourselves as bumkinish, but I was entirely blown away by the HUGE deal New York makes of Columbus Day. The parade must have been a mile long, with a bunch of marching bands, hundreds of politicians, and every Italian west of Rome (Italy, not New York).
If you haven’t read Calvin Trillin’s accounts of his family’s history with the Village Halloween parade, I highly recommend them. I can’t remember exactly which of his many books the stories are in, but I’ll thumb through my library and try to get a citation for you. Trillin was totally committed to making every holiday special for his daughters, including long after they were a little too old to care about being in a parade.
John
I am from NY and they even have a Circle (street) named after Columbus. I was under the impression they were celebrating that they don’t live in that particularly named town in Ohio.
I’ll look for you in old Honolula
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go
Tiny box Dylan
My bank kindly puts out a PSA when they take a made up holiday:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYUd_ZC7ipA
I had a ton of shit to do on columbus day involving the bank and the post office including an angry parent who was waiting on a check from me.
Why we have a day celebrating the discovery of ohio is beyond me.
I got a little unnecessarily short with the cashier at the pet food store the other day after I followed the directions to swipe my payment card and then had to do it all over again for no readily apparent reason. Any time I have to swipe a card twice, I get all suspicious. I wouldn’t be surprised if I learn a month from now that my account number has been stolen…again.
I work as a cashier on occasion, and I tell you, the chance that those dumbass things read a card on the first try is about one in ten. I hate them.
Behavior in movie theaters drives me nuts. I see maybe two movies a year because of the idiots who can’t seem to turn their stinkin’ phone off, chew with their mouths closed, not kick the back of my seat, not sit right in front of me when the whole theater is available . . . on and on.
Yeah – it’s you.
For which we – your faithful readers – are eternally grateful.
Yeah, sometimes I consider suggesting to Jeff various anger-management techniques, like meditation or whatever. But then I think: What, don’t I enjoy reading about Jeff going crazy with frustration on a regular basis? Of course I do! I’ll keep silent about the wonders of meditation.
the dick imprint line made me choke on my oreo..well played, jeff, well played
I totally visualized it too.
As we age, and as I get closer to sixty, the patience threshold gets very very low. Little things just get me so torqued up. And I think it’s more prevalent in males.
The post office thing would have ended with a gas can and a road flare. The haircut incident, I would have handled the same way. I find myself cursing at the automated checkout at the A&P. I need help.
I like the new coke machines because it gives me yet another chance to prove my superiority of the vast majority of humanity. Bam! Bam! Drink served. Done. The slack-jaws stare at me in wonder. I do the same thing at ATM machines. I’ve got it down to a science. Three buttons, take cash and gone. I’m disappointed when there is not a line behind me to notice. “How did that guy do that?” They all wonder. Seriously that’s the kind of satisfaction I’m after these days.
But the flaw with the coke machines is it’s a one-person-at-a-time deal. Your traditional fountain machine you can always stretch one hand in there while Aunt Gert is trying to decide how to get water out of the thing. “Excuse me, dear, let me just stretch around you and pour my Diet Coke while you drift off.” You can get 3 or 4 people all pouring their drinks at once. Those new ones though, no-can-do multi-users. The line is always huge and kids are trying to figure out how to put root beer, sunkist and grape fanta in one cup. That’s why the Moe’s always have 2 of them. Still not enough.
Trust me, Jeff, it is NOT you. If I had Mr. and Mrs. Ed sitting behind me in the movie theater, I would have said something to them or gotten up in a huff and moved my seat. This is the reason I’ve been to 6 movies over the past 19 years.
The soda thing is just plain nasty. All those different flavors tumbling out of the same spigot? So my Coke ends up tasting like raspberry limeade punch? Fuck no!
I don’t get the 838 forms of ID at the post office but then again, it is a gumment run agency. One of our local post offices closes from 12:00 – 1:00 for lunch – you know – when most of the public run their errands during their lunch breaks. Friggin’ ridiculous.
The lunch break thing can be explained by remembering a big portion of the USPS exists to simply to employ people – the work is secondary. Your office is being run for the benefit of the employees, not customers.
I can never find the diet coke button on that fucker!
Its usually the empty one.
Like has been said, it’s not you. The public in general makes me fucking crazy. The Post Office has a particular way of doing that, and I work there. It’s gotten worse in the last few years, what with some politicians trying their level best to bankrupt the entire PO so they can privatize it for their personal gain. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Issa, you shitheel. And then there’s Diane Feinstein’s husband, buying up closed postal facilities for pennies on the dollar with no bid purchases and reselling them at a profit. The number of Jerry’s kids they’ve hired in the last couple years is simply astounding. The Post Office is NOT a government agency, hasn’t been since 1970. Entirely self supporting, except for having to pre-fund retiree health benefits for 75 years over a ten year period. That is the SOLE reason for the claims that the PO is going bankrupt. How long would any other business last with that mandate? In fact, NO OTHER business in the country (or the world for that matter) has had that burden placed on it by a congress intent upon bankrupting it. Again, for the personal gain of a few well placed politicians who would rather you not know the truth. Sorry for the rant. Sometimes I just have to let this out.
Skip, everything you said is true, but you already knew that. Congress is indeed trying to put the Postal Service out of business. We won’t know what we have until we lose it.
The PS operates under so many constraints, it can’t possibly compete with the private carriers, but somehow it does. People have short memories, and don’t remember that last Christmas, UPS melted down. As a last minute shopper guy, I didn’t get some of my gifts until nearly New Years. The USPS came through with everything they promised.
The USPS is a terrific organization that has a rich and colorful history, but we have a way of turning anything with character into a 100 flavor drink dispenser and calling it progress.
John
I haven’t gotten a ‘Friday Update’ in weeks. I thought maybe the system spit out my email address or something or maybe the post office got wind of your emails and decided to pull a fast one. Anyway, great post as always! I enjoy reading your rants.
PS… Columbus Day should NOT be a Federal Holiday! Just sayin’.
“Chinchilla”! LOL. Watch the movie Frank and you’ll enjoy that word even more. I’m still CCTM (chuckling quietly to myself).
“CQTM” that is…
Where can I get a beer like the one in the picture? And will it stay icy cold? Damn, that looks good.
It all comes down to this…..you hate people. I, too, hate people, so I enjoy reading you bitching about people. It’s all okay, you take your hatred and your natural talent and VOILA! It is acceptable. Otherwise you’d just be a grouchy old crow like me.
I don’t understand why it takes so long to buy snacks at the movies. I was prepared to shell out whatever the cost was for popcorn, and there were only three people ahead of me in line, but I didn’t have the patience to wait. I think I stood there for five minutes, with no movement in the line, and decided it was just going to take too long. Then there were commercials and previews for at least 30 minutes, so I really could have waited.
Post Offices. Fun times. One of them in my small town had a woman that worked there. Well, to say “worked” is an overstatement. She was present, and collected money, but didn’t work. That’s not a euphemism for working slowly or poorly. She. didn’t. work. She was apparently disabled or something. The lone cashier/other worker hated her. When she was’t there, you’d get all the dirt on what a no good drag on the system she was. Once I understood that it was tolerable to her co-worker, it made me feel a little better.
Another time (another post office), I took back a package, suggesting I’d just take it to FedEx. She freaked. This was a proper post office with multiple registers, a line, etc. Please was full of people and she started yelling that I’d said the “f-word”. That being “FedEx”. She actually went on to tell me how I was part of the problem, why the PO wasn’t meeting revenue goals, etc. Then I pointed out there was a FedEx drop box by the from door of the building she worked in (an actual stand alone post office). It was like she’d never seen it. Like she never saw the front of her building. Some kinda crazy.
I always enjoy the Columbus Day sales. You can go into the store and just take what you want.
*rimshot*
Jeff,
Sesame Street was way in the future when I grew up; nonetheless, I know how to play “one of these things is not like the others”. Jeff, not knowing that Columbus Day is a holiday is related to the failure of a machine that dispenses 100 drinks, a couple dickhole clip shops, and people talking at the movies only through your response to them.
I knew Columbus Day was coming up because I bank at an actual bank, with nice tellers (they don’t call them that any more), free coffee, and a drawers full of money of every denomination. Next door to my bank is an actual bookstore where actual people, including a prof or two from the local University, discuss and argue about books. They also tell dick jokes — nobody would mistake the place for the Algonquin Roundtable. So I get a twofer when I bank once a week or so.
It would never occur to me to engage an automated drink machine or go to a movie.
And… I’ve only had a few people cut my hair (and I’m old). The last one was for twenty years, and ended the last of June with her very early retirement. When I find the right person (it will be a female — men have no idea how to cut hair) I’ll be set for life and I’ll get my hair cut again. Even without much money, I continued to get my hair cut every two weeks. Now it’s been three and a half months. I guess I gotta get on that. My small point is that treating a haircut as part of a relationship rather than part of a transaction can save wear and terror on the sphincter.
The world is getting less civil and we’re getting older. A deadly combination at best. You need to frequent places in addition to home that offer shelter from the storm.
John
Jeff, best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten:
‘Learn to accept the things you cannot change’
Not that it makes it any easier, just kinda puts it in perspective! 🙂
No it’s not you. Having only lived in the Valley of alcoholism for just over 3 years now, I have noticed the very same thing, people are fucking crazy around here. Everyone NEEDS to overcomplicate Everything!!! It throws me into a off balance, spinning out of control rage just about daily. NEPA is a very strange place. Lived all over the country and I have never experienced anything remotely like it. People here are ingnorant, self-entitled and just plain perpetully angry fucks
Like this guy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFndOvt7MP8
He’s one of the more intelligent ones
It’s definitely NOT you, Jeff. Wasn’t the 80’s called the “Me” decade? Well, welcome to the decade of “Hooray for ME and FUCK you”. And it’s only going to get worse.
I work part time in the antique shop I have a space in. Every asshole in town was in today. Today’s winning douchbag earns the title because she wanted to buy a vintage electric razor, stood at the front counter, hiked up her dress and began shaving her thigh hair. Shaved. Her. Thigh. My jaw hit the floor. Thankfully it must have shaved a path on her hamhock cuz she bought it. Unfrigginbelievable!!!
“Floating heads, Floating heads, use them on your thighs
You’ll be smooth and you’ll impress the girls and the guys.
Floating heads, Floating heads, use them as you dare.
Oh such fun you’ll have each day removing pubic hair.”
(old Norelco commercial that used a Jingle Bells melody.)
Jesus H! How disgusting. On so many levels. I’m surprised she didn’t drop her drawers and start waxing the hoo ha.
Was she hot?
What would Jimmy Khun have done?
Spurted, of course. RIP.
.
Notalwaysworking.com