Rain Man
12-22-2009, 12:20 PM
I went to the post office to mail my niece and nephew gifts, and my wife had warned me that there was a line. So I took the following:
- Nephew gifts in a box that I found
- Niece gifts loose so I could buy a padded shipping envelope there and put it together in line.
- Christmas card to a friend in Mexico since I wasn't sure how much postage it needed
- Magazine to read in line.
I showed up, and there was a line of about 20 people, not as bad as my wife had warned. So I grabbed a padded envelope from the shelf and got in the back of the line, and tried to figure out how to hold the box and the Mexican card and the magazine while stuffing the niece gifts in the envelope. The magazine was one of those slick ones (Fortune) so it was sliding all over the place and the Mexican card was kind of small and there was no place to put stuff down and the line was moving forward pretty quickly so I had to keep shuffling forward.
I got the niece gifts in the envelope and wrote her name and address on it, and then realized that the tape on the nephew box was coming loose, so I started trying to smooth the tape down. I had also taped it kind of quickly, and I'd used that clear packing tape stuff, and in a couple of spots the tape had taped itself and not the box, so then I took out my Swiss Army Knife and was trying to do a little surgery on the tape while still moving forward in line and balancing the other stuff.
And all of a sudden - dang! I gave myself a horrific paper cut. It was on the cardboard of the box, so it made two parallel cuts, not just one, right on the tip of my right index finger.
I shook it off, and finished my tape surgery, and then noticed that a piece of the mailing label was also loose since I had accidentally put it over the packing tape. (I'm really bad at wrapping stuff.) So I smoothed the label down really briskly, and by this time I was third or fourth in line.
I got everything organized, and got to the front. I went to my local postal worker and set my stuff on the counter, and saw a decent-sized stain on my niece's envelope right next to her name. What the - ? It was red and looked like blood.
I looked down, and my paper cut had been bleeding actively. I'd been holding the envelope in that hand, so it went straight to the envelope. Then I looked at my nephew's box, and the (white) address label had two big smears of blood across the label where I'd smoothed it down. But hey, I was at the front of the line, so I gave them to the post office.
I wonder what they're going to think when those gifts arrive.
- Nephew gifts in a box that I found
- Niece gifts loose so I could buy a padded shipping envelope there and put it together in line.
- Christmas card to a friend in Mexico since I wasn't sure how much postage it needed
- Magazine to read in line.
I showed up, and there was a line of about 20 people, not as bad as my wife had warned. So I grabbed a padded envelope from the shelf and got in the back of the line, and tried to figure out how to hold the box and the Mexican card and the magazine while stuffing the niece gifts in the envelope. The magazine was one of those slick ones (Fortune) so it was sliding all over the place and the Mexican card was kind of small and there was no place to put stuff down and the line was moving forward pretty quickly so I had to keep shuffling forward.
I got the niece gifts in the envelope and wrote her name and address on it, and then realized that the tape on the nephew box was coming loose, so I started trying to smooth the tape down. I had also taped it kind of quickly, and I'd used that clear packing tape stuff, and in a couple of spots the tape had taped itself and not the box, so then I took out my Swiss Army Knife and was trying to do a little surgery on the tape while still moving forward in line and balancing the other stuff.
And all of a sudden - dang! I gave myself a horrific paper cut. It was on the cardboard of the box, so it made two parallel cuts, not just one, right on the tip of my right index finger.
I shook it off, and finished my tape surgery, and then noticed that a piece of the mailing label was also loose since I had accidentally put it over the packing tape. (I'm really bad at wrapping stuff.) So I smoothed the label down really briskly, and by this time I was third or fourth in line.
I got everything organized, and got to the front. I went to my local postal worker and set my stuff on the counter, and saw a decent-sized stain on my niece's envelope right next to her name. What the - ? It was red and looked like blood.
I looked down, and my paper cut had been bleeding actively. I'd been holding the envelope in that hand, so it went straight to the envelope. Then I looked at my nephew's box, and the (white) address label had two big smears of blood across the label where I'd smoothed it down. But hey, I was at the front of the line, so I gave them to the post office.
I wonder what they're going to think when those gifts arrive.