Priority Mail

I should have made supper and be eating right now. But here I sit at the keyboard. I know it is just one week from Christmas. It’s a busy season in the shipping world. Everything must “arrive in time”. You saw my post earlier about the pillows I made for my son’s amom. Well, I was waiting for one last thing to come in. And I just got a call last Friday 12/12 that they weren’t going to get it in at all. So I had to go out over the weekend to find a replacement. Monday night was dance class, so I did the wrapping last night. Before getting ready for work this morning I went to the US Post Office to mail the package. If I had taken off work a little early, I could have driven the hour to deliver the package to the !@#$ agency, who would forward the package onto the afamily. But I could not get off work. Besides, I hate that place! Even if they were only 5 minutes away, I’d hate going there. It’s like walking into a cemetery of the living dead. I hate talking to anyone who works there. I hate making eye contact. I especially hate seeing their smiles. I’d pull my coat close to me, as if the lurking, lingering, partying evil would get its hold on me. My imagination gets carried away as I envision their smile fading away to a sinister sneer when I turn my back. I absolutely hate that place. I hate it so much that I would risk the package being late. The USPS worker gives me the rates for my two shipping options. Priority mail would arrive by 8:45 tomorrow; regular parcel deliver would be a minimum of 3 days. I’m sure he rattled off prices, but numbers fall out of my head and I promptly forgot them. I opted for the regular delivery – since it should not take 3 days for a package to go from one main shipping ‘city’ to another that is only 45 minutes away. And it takes that long only if you drive the speed limit. Then as the fellow was ringing up the total, I asked him what the difference was between priority and regular delivery. He explains again how long it would take to deliver, and laughed as he said didn’t we already go over that. I laughed too and said, “Yes, but I wasn’t listening. What was the price difference?” So, for a little over a dollar more, my package will arrive at the agency’s lair, oops, I mean office tomorrow morning. And that is where the priority mail has lost its priority. It was a priority to me. It may be a priority to my son. But the agency? What do they really care? Why should they even care? They have nothing to gain anymore. In fact it will cost them to forward the package on. I can’t imagine that spending money; even “in the interest of the child” would cause it to be a priority to them. I’ve resigned that they will do “their best,” which to me is a very low standard anyway. My son may not get his Christmas gifts until January.

But at least I put my heart and soul into that package before I sent it.

And I need to remind myself that therein is where the priority really is.