Postcards From Downtown

Postcards From Downtown - Dayna Kurtz

US post offices are the assholes of the world: all things indigestible go through here. US post offices are the assholes of the world, and constipated at that. There is always a line at the US post office, a large intestine sluggishly snaking from door to windows. It doesn’t matter if you come in early in the morning, or around lunch time, or just before closing time; there is always a line and somehow the line never gets any shorter. For every customer trickling down the line to be called up to one of the triple glass windows, two new customers pour in.

The US post office is a place where defeat and despair reign supreme. Despair starts with the mystical amount of forms you have to fill out – for national mail, international mail, customs forms, first class, priority and express mail forms, receipts, return statements – all with form titles that are designed to not let on their meaning: who can tell the difference between the PS Form 2976 (Customs Declaration CN 22 - Reference Only: Order from MDC using PSN 7530-01-000-9833 (9/2009)) and the PS Form 2976-A (Customs Declaration and Dispatch Note CP 72 - Reference Only: Order from MDC using PSN 7530-01-000-9834 (5/2009))?
I sure as hell can’t. And neither can the dismal looking local postcard senders scuttling to and fro around me. Everyone is trying to catch the eye of any employee, helplessly hoping to find some kind of salvation there. But to no avail.
I have learned to take one copy of every form on display in the racks spread out in the post office, and fill them all out while I stand in line. Every single one of them. Just in case. The employee behind the counter will sigh as they flip through them: ‘Don’t need that one, don’t need this one... I’ll take this one and this one... This’ll do, too, and could you sign this one for me please?’
The timid humiliation that goes with your paper overkill beats the old ‘Looks like you forgot to fill out your Domestic or International Claim’ or ‘I really need a Return Receipt for International Mail on this one’, before being sent back, unforbidding, to the racks without a clue as to what was just said, but still holding your mail. And with the prospect of having to get back in line. Defeated. Capitalist bureaucracy is a thing of beauty.

I have been standing in said line for about two minutes when a large man in a hooded hunter’s jacket and a blue shirt shuffles up behind me. I look back and nod in recognition – I am, indeed, the end of the line. Or the beginning! I think, optimistically. The man has undefined stains of something greasy all over his chest. Oddly enough, he’s wearing a pair of perfectly pressed dress pants, over a dull but clean pair of brown shoes, the laces untied. The guy is so big that he probably hasn’t seen his feet in a while, and I can imagine he gave up on trying to reach his shoes to tie the laces. Why not go for loafers? I wonder vaguely. Then again, I hate loafers. Besides, it’s January. Either way, the untied laces don’t seem to bother the man. For one, his feet look to enormously solid-look to even notice the lack of counterpressure, and besides, the rest of the man has other things to be concerned about. I can hear him humming something behind my back. His hum slowly gets louder, until I can make out what he is saying.

‘Is your pack-age safe to mail? Hee hee! Are you sure you have not packed any haz-ard-ous mat-ee-rials? Mer-cury, fuel, fire-works… Match-es, batteries, explos-iiiii-ves? Hee hee hee! Is your pack-age safe-to-mail?’ He almost sing-songs it, like he’s the announcer next to a shooting gallery in an amusement park. I look at him again. His eyes are magnified, shining soft and helpless through big rimmed, old fashioned glasses like the ones my dad used to wear in the late seventies. He sports a cultivated little beard – not in corresponding seventies style, as you might expect, but something professionals call a Vandyck. The mustache part of Post Office Guy’s Vandyck is completely grey; the goatee is grey with streaks of ginger. His jacket is big enough to protect the world.

As I look away, the man comes up with all kinds of materials that may be hazardous to pack. ‘Hair-spray, perfume, lighters, nail polish… Lip-stick, shoe laces…’ He can probably do this all day, and from the sounds of it, he plans to. I look around me. The other people in line are actively and grimly ignoring the man. They stare at a point right in front of them, clutching their envelopes and pressing their packages tight to their chest. The guy has begun to sway softly on his feet, like an old fashioned airplane propeller about to be swung into action. I can feel his fervor radiating, pulsing, pushing up on me from behind. He is talking louder and louder now – but he doesn’t do anything. He’s just a guy waiting in line at a US post office, like the rest of us.

My eyes wander to the red warning sign on one of the glass counter windows, informing visitors that anyone who attempts an armed robbery of this post office risks a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. The glass windows are bullet resistant. I know this because one of my friends who works at a bank told me. Bank windows and post office windows are bullet resistant.
The friend’s bank was robbed a little while ago. She was behind the counter when a hooded guy walked up and shoved a note under the slot. ‘Gimme 20 + 10’, it said. My friend had to read it twice. At first she thought the man must be a mute, so she looked him in the eyes and asked, ‘What is your bank account number? And can I see your card or ID?’ But the guy didn’t respond. Maybe he is deaf as well, my friend thought, ever ready to help. So she tried again, deliberately and carefully articulating the words this time. But then the guy opened his big coat ever so slightly to reveal a tiny gun. And just like that, she was in the middle of an armed bank robbery.

My friend then took one 20 dollar note and one 10 dollar note out of the register; she pushed it under the slot, towards the guy, folded her arms and waited. The guy was so taken aback that he took the money and ran out on the street, with 30 bucks in his pocket. Walked in a customer; ran out wanted for armed robbery, with nothing to show for it but 25 years in jail. All because he didn’t know how to spell out a proper money demand.

My friend shrugged it off: the teller's windows are bullet resistant. I looked it up. Bullet resistant is not quite bullet proof. A regular bullet from a regular pistol will not penetrate the glass – probably. No guarantees there – and nobody seems to consider the possibility of ricocheting bullets, bouncing off the windows and straight into the line, hitting unsuspecting customers standing behind the robber who were never even aimed at. Machine guns or sawed off shotguns are, of course, a different story altogether. They’re harder to hide under your hoodie, though. The double barrel makes for a more conspicuous stroll. The point is, the glass is bullet resistant; but the windows of these bank and post office counters only start from the waist up. The lower half of the counters is made of pressed chipboard that pretty much crumbles under the well aimed kick of a sturdy boot; I don’t think it can withstand a bullet, however ordinary the pistol that shoots it.

What are bank or post office employees instructed to do, in case of a shoot-from-the-hip type robbery? To duck for cover isn’t going to cut it: anything aimed below the glass, like a clumsy warning shot, is likely to penetrate the chipboard. Subsequently, to duck for cover on the floor behind the window is to risk getting shot in the head. Maybe all bank employees are trained to jump up as high as they can in the case of anyone shooting up the place. Procedure: (1) try to make it above glass level. (2) Jump real high, and hope for the best. Maybe the ideal bank employee is a paraplegic who at least won’t feel any shots shredding the bones of his legs behind the board as he reaches for the silent alarm button. Or better still, the ideal employee would be an amputee. No legs at all dangling in harm’s way. No expensive leap training required. All the training involves is the fastest way to screw their chairs up high, above average waist level, and stay put. And hope the robber is not toting a sawed-off shotgun, because then all bets are off.

As I am pondering below-the-waist bank security and the criminal disadvantages of illiteracy, the man behind me is swaying into a verbal frenzy. ‘Lip-stick, twee-eezers, bottled water, bottled soda, teddy bears, toy bunny rabbits… The government, Homeland Security, US Mail… All these paranoid idiots! What else will these idiots consider hazardous material?’ he shouts. ‘Lip-stick, soda water, mah-ga-ziiines… When will Mr. and Mrs. Joe Tax Payer say, We are done with this stupidity? When will they say, We have had enough of these paranoids poking and prodding around in our personal property and our personal privacy? When will they have had enough of the paranoid idiocy of these sub-Neanderthal clowns and jackasses? Hee hee! Is you pack-age safe to mail? Please make sure you do not try to send any haz-ar-dous material… Shoe laces, bunny rabbits, tweezers…’

I consider, Is this guy your average run of the mill all-bark-no-bite type of big city eccentric, or the more troublesome ‘I always giggle before I go postal’ type? Is he about to open his big coat ever so slightly to reveal a sawed off shotgun, then open fire on everyone inside the post office, starting with the post office employees? Should I yell, ‘Jump! For god’s sake, jump as high as you can!’, and hope the employees will follow my lead? But then I think, nah. If this were a man with a gun, he’d be shooting up the place by now. Instead, he’s chatting up the place.

Suddenly, one of the employees, a hefty lady, slides down from her chair behind the glass. She walks up from behind the counter area, into the public area and straight up to the line. Is she going to tell the man to shut up? I hope not. I don’t know what this guy will do if he is told to shut up already, but I am sure it won’t be pretty, gun or no gun. ‘Is there anyone in this line who just needs money orders or stamps? Anyone here, just for stamps or money orders? If you are here only to buy stamps or anybody who just needs a money order, please step out of the line and go to window 8. Window 8, only for stamps and money orders’, the lady says. The man immediately wriggles past me, and starts making his way to window 8. Other people follow in his wake, making sure he gets to the window first. They huddle up behind him. ‘No!’ commands the lady. What now? we all fret. ‘Sir, please make sure the line forms within the rope, and nowhere else.’ Somehow, a little rope has appeared, hammocked between two metal poles. At the beginning of the rope is a sign that says: This Line For Stamps And Money Orders Only. Everybody, including the guy, silently obliges. How could we have missed that sign before?
The employee behind the window asks the guy, who is still swaying on his feet, ‘What can I do for you sir?’
And just like that, the man stops swaying. ‘I will have twenty stamps and a money order for 30 dollars, please,’ he gurgles.
‘– Debit or credit?’ the employee asks.
‘Credit, please’, the man informs the employee, his mustache trembling.
‘– Anything else I can do for you?’
‘No, that is all, thank you. Thank you.’ And off he goes, all smiles, stamps in hand. Off, no doubt, to wrap up some hazardous materials to mail. Lipstick, teddy bears, tweezers… Suddenly I’m pretty sure I forgot to grab an essential form before I got in line. That means I will be stuck for at least another half hour in this US post office – did I mention it’s the asshole of the world?