Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Pin It When I left my classroom early this evening I was dreaming about the case of Dr. Pepper I had in my car. I had originally planned on taking it into my classroom and hiding it. One can never be sure when the need will strike for the good doctor.

The case was open and sitting on the front seat.

As I pulled out onto the street I approached an intersection with a stop sign. As I came to a halt, the end of the case (which admittedly was ripped) came open and every single one of those cans of glorious, heavenly nectar came crashing to the floor.

Like a game of Russian roulette, would one want to take a chance on opening a ‘now loaded’ can and suffer the possible consequences?

I think not…at least not in my car.

So, no Dr. for me.

I drove to the post office to mail the dry dough I’d offered out last week. I’d found boxes of sufficient size and took these treasured little parcels to the automated machine to send them off—I couldn’t believe my eyes when the machine told me that the cheapest form of shipment was going to cost $7.55.

Each.

You’ve got to be kidding.

Thinking that this was perhaps an early April Fool’s joke, I tried it again. The appalling results were shamefully unchanged. Thinking that a living postal worker would be able to find a cheaper mode of transport, I joined the throng of people waiting in the line of ‘nearly dead’ which always seem to be at the post office.

I am convinced that most people in bad moods either get jobs at the post office or merely go there to hang out. There must be something in the air which attracts them like lemmings to cliffs over large bodies of water.

As I waited in line for my turn to send my various and sundries, I tried to pass the time by reading over shipping charges for certain boxes and envelopes, the costs of new series of stamps, and tried my hardest not to listen in on the conversation between the postal workers and the customers they were currently helping. However, since there is little to no talking in a post office, it was impossible not to hear what was being said.

I couldn’t believe that a woman was at the counter wanting to purchase one…one stamp with a picture of somebody on it. She then struck up a conversation with the postal worker about how one could get a stamp with a photo of Mullett Spunkle—world’s first nose-hair braider in the continental U.S.

I couldn’t believe it.

In the end she made a $ .73 purchase…and used her credit card.

Some people.

Sometime between now and the millennium I finally found myself at the counter with my three parcels. As the first was weighted I was asked, “How would you like these shipped?”

“As slowly and as cheaply as possible,” I answered. I was still thinking about the automated machine and the ‘joke fares’ it had been trying to charge me.

Poppycock. I thought.

“Looks like the cheapest mode of transport is going to be $7.55.”

Say what?

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Isn’t there a rate for shipping dirt or something? This isn’t crack cocaine, you know.”

Her eyebrows went up a bit.

“What is in these packages?”

“Just dry cookie dough ingredients.”

I was now expecting her to rip one open and investigate the contents, simultaneously throwing herself over the counter and wrestling me to the ground while calling the police with the drug-sniffing dogs. Meanwhile the next customer would get my place in line.

Curses.

Luckily, she didn’t.

She instead began to talk about how much she loved cookies.

As the three weighed up packages were shipped out at somewhere near the cost to buy the three disk Blu-ray version of Prince Caspian, I paid for my shipping in disbelief and started out the door with a smile and a thanks.

However, to my surprise, even as I was leaving the post office, the woman kept talking…she loved cookies. Girl Scout cookies, those sold by schools…heck, she’d love to try them. She’d probably even love to buy some dough…even without trying it. In fact, there were lots of people at the post office that probably would. In fact, if people from Arizona, Washington, and other places in the continental U.S. were wanting to get this stuff, how come she hadn’t heard of it?

I’m taking some samples by tomorrow.

Why the new look?

Mostly because I am lazy.

Oh, and by the way...shipping is going to have to be $4 now...