News Flash: I love the post office

No, there is not a trace of sarcasm in that title. I really do, if for just a day, LOVE the post office.

Normally, I hate the post office. I feel like the employees are often slothful and apathetic, as if deliberately trying to drive me mad. (It doesn't help any that I don't generally designate adequate time to get in and get out. Generally, I manage to forget the slothful and apathetic way in which my visit will undoubtedly be received, and then, inevitably, I am forced to painfully remember as I wait there in line for who-knows-what to get done so I can hand over my package and some money and be done with it.)

Today was different. Let me be clear--the employees seemed lethargic as usual, a state likely aggrandized by the fact that closing time was only a few ticks away. However, once to the counter, I had a much better experience than I had anticipated.

Allow me to backtrack: I was coming from the apartment manager's office, where I had been patronized by a woman in a twangy, condescending tone, "Don't you remember, sweetie? When you were here to sign the lease we told y'all that you'd have to go pick it up from the post office." (Actually, the same woman had instructed us to come back on Monday to get it from her, which is precisely what I was trying to do. Another roommate, also present for the original exchange, had tried to do the same thing but 20 minutes before, unbeknown to me.)

Allow me to backtrack even further: We misplaced our mail key last week. I called and left a message at our apartment manager's office on Memorial Day, asking what we would need to do if we lost our mail key (uh, hypothetically, of course). Our lovely management promptly called the post office and ordered a new mail key and informed us it would cost $15, although in the interim between my leaving a message and speaking with the management again, we had found the original mail key. But, too late. They'd ordered a new one, and it was too late to cancel, as they discovered in calling the post office.

So we're done backtracking. There I was, at the post office today, 5 minutes before closing time, there to pick up a key I didn't really want but desperately needed because our mail lock had been changed. And I was gonna have to pay for it. The man went to look for the mail key. He brought not one, but three mail keys, which means one key for each of my roommates and myself, instead of one clumsily-passed baton that gets dropped and/or forgotten to be hung on the hook in our kitchen. When he brought out the keys, he said, "Has this already been paid for?"

"Uh, no. I don't know. Does it look like it has been?" I said.

"Uh...not really. Yeah. Uh...I'm just gonna give these to you."

I signed off on the deal, and he asked to verify my ID. "Have you ever watched CSI Miami?" he asked, alternately studying my face and then the picture gleaming up from my license. "You look exactly like that girl, Poppi Monroe. The girl on that show." I hadn't seen the show, and I didn't know who she was, but I figured it was flattering to have someone think you look like a movie star. I came home and googled her and decided it was, indeed, a compliment.

So, in summary, I walked away with three times the amount of product for infinitely less price than I expected, and I looked like a movie star while doing it. Boo-yeah.