Funerary urn for Gwendolyn A. Sisk

My mother is on her way to Spokane.  She went as Express Mail via USPS.  I tried to FedEx her but discovered that FedEx won’t ship cremated remains.  Same for UPS.  So off to the local post office to face the madding crowd.
Not a good day for the madding crowd.  Or rather, a good day to be far from the madding crowd.  And either way, it was a maddening crowd.  The line was out the door and down the side of the building.  Folks at the front of the line had pigeon shit on their heads and shoulders, so I figured Postal Service was even more oxymoronic than usual.
Instead of toughing it out as a stationary target drone for dive-bombing feathered rats, I drove home and took care of the postage from my computer.  It took about ten minutes to open a personal account, input package and service information, and print out a self-stick Express Mail label with paid postage.  All that was left was to drive back to the post office and put the package into the self-serve package drop-off.  Piece of cake!
As I walked up to the self-serve kiosk and positioned my left hand to pat myself on the back, I discovered my package was one inch too large for the self-serve option.  Pigeon shit!
I ended up waiting in line for half an hour so I could simply place the package in front of a live postal person and say, “Here.”  If I had been in a better mood, I would have said, “Here. Take my mother. Please!”  I’m sure my mother would have laughed loudly enough to be heard.

April 15, 2013