Maybe my first mistake was trying to prepare the birth announcements before the baby was born. But I had a few minutes to kill, a package to mail, and was right by a post office.
Unfortunately it was a branch not known for their customer care.
Infuriating customers with their apathetic tellers? Definitely.
Giving a visual illustration to the term “go postal on you”? Daily.
I know–so cliche to complain about customer service at the post office. But this branch is distinctively bad.
So, why would I go in there today of all days and expect something more? Today when I’m heavily pregnant and tired and in a hurry? Hormones, I guess. Or insanity
After I waited for FORTY MINUTES, I should have turned around and mailed my package at the convenient UPS store in the mini-mall down the street. I should have ordered my stamps on Zazzle. Or bought them at Costco, like we do 98.7% of our other household items.
But no. I stayed and watched the madness.
All three postal employees were helping one woman find her mail. Apparently she had never bothered to check her apartment mailbox.
That she’d had since January.
Why she picked today to search for her mail, I don’t know. Or why she was so angry that they hadn’t been stockpiling it for her, I also don’t understand. She even demanded to know her letter carrier’s name. I don’t know what she planned to do with this information, but all three of the tellers tried to hunt it down for her.
And I stood. And watched as the tellers, who were drawn to the drama like a FORCE, gather around her and roll their eyes and put their hands on their hips at the audacity of this woman.
And I stood some more. Still pregnant. Still holding my package. Still waiting for someone to sell me some stamps. As I debated whether or not to huff my way out of there, I convinced myself that the stamps would MAKE the birth announcements. Every year I stand in line for nativity stamps for our Christmas letters, and those are now a Hergenrader tradition.
Yes, I decided, I would sacrifice for what was important. Our fourth child would not suffer with the Forever stamps sold at Costco. I would treat him to the entire arsenal of genuine post office stamps–the best of the best. I would show my love for him by hand-selecting the most precious, delicate stamps that whispered, “we have a new baby and for this blessing we rejoice.”
My intentions were pure. The post office, unfortunately, is not.
When I was finally called to the counter, I asked to see their selection of available stamps. The woman shook her head and looked at me with the disdain she had just shown the lady who did not check her mail box for seven months.
“No stamps.”
“What do you mean? No love stamps?”
“We only have these.” She plunked down the Sunday Funnies collection of stamps. And a handful from the Negro Leagues Baseball.
“This is all you have. No Forever Stamps? The ones with the bell?”
She glared. “This is all we have.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the Negro Baseball League was an important part of our nation’s history. And I truly love Calvin and Hobbes…and have been mildly entertained by Beetle Bailey, Archie, and the shenanigans of Dennis the Menace and Garfield.
But on my son’s birth announcements?
I’m ashamed to say I bought them. 100 of them. I was delirious from the heat and the ten-pound baby crushing a major artery inside me.
Look in your mailboxes in a few weeks. Many of you will receive a joyous greeting celebrating our newborn son.
But it will surely be the upper right hand corner of the envelope that draws your eye.
There it is. The sacrifice for my son.
The history of Sunday Funnies in America.
