Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Quiz show

I hate it when customers try to stump me with the old question
"How much does it cost to send a first class letter to Khazakistan?"
I feel so inadequate. I guess i should know all this stuff off the top of my head, but lately i feel lucky if i remember what day it is.

Last week, a kindly oldish customer wanted to know the denomination of all these stamps from the past that don't have their value on them, just the picture. i stared blankly at the Tulip, the Bird, the Heart...yeah, i've seen them all before but do i have a clue what their values are? i stalled for time while in my head i was cursing the person that made the executive decision to create all of these "priceless" stamps. i had to admit that i was stumped but told them that i could find out.
i wanted to say " why don't you just slam a few on there and hope for the best?" but i held my tongue for the 8,0000th time.

which reminds me of the classic .."Do i have enough postage on this ?"
how many times have i wanted to put my hands out to imitate a scale and then "weigh" them carefully and then thoughtfully throw them some totally random number like ..$1.62"..just to see if they could tell that i was BS-ing them.

it's like ground hog's day..this crap just keeps happening.. and i'm never ready for it.

Friday, August 1, 2008

search for the ultimate postal ring tone

about two weeks ago, my 20 year old pal jessie stopped by for a visit.
i hadn't seen her for quite a while and we were catching up.
at least we were trying to.
her cell phone was ringing every two minutes.
instead of being annoyed,
i was actually getting into it because she had such a cool ring tone
that every time she got another call, i wanted to get up and dance.

i have a pitiful tracfone and up until my meeting with jessie, an equally pitiful
pre-programmed ring tone.
after jess left, i summoned my techno-savy 11 year old son and told him the time had come for me to cough up the cash and buy my first ring tone.
he scanned through the menu and we listened for just the right song...
one that was cool, yet meaningful.
one that made a loud statement about my life.
after much searching we found it.
i believe this should be the official ring tone of mail carriers across America.
every time your boss walks by, blast your ring tone...
mick jagger belting out Beast of Burden !
it's so much more subtle than Take this job and Shove it.
and, oh yeah, i can dance to it.