My post office blows. I know I’ve complained about this before, but the Kensington Post Office blows. So much so that there was even a town meeting with our councilman to complain. Judging by what happened today, however, this didn’t accomplish anything.

Yesterday the postman left a slip saying that he had attempted to deliver an express mail envelope from my mom, but since no one was home, he couldn’t. (I think my postman is full of shit because the damn envelope would have fit through the mail slot if his lazy ass had felt like putting it there, but that’s another gripe.) So this morning I asked my darling boy if he could go to the post office for me, since I am trying to get out of work early so we can take the girls to Coney Island and couldn’t be late to work and expect to leave early. He went. And then he called me.

Apparently, he had spent fifteen minutes in line, a line that stretched almost out the door and moved slower than molasses in January. (Rick was amazed by that, since it’s such a small post office, but I was not. Par for the course at this bass-ackwards place.) Then, when he was just about to give up, they opened the window for people with package pickup slips. One man was given grief about his ID, which was an expired Iowa drivers license. He was told that the ID didn’t verify anything, since it was expired – never mind the fact that it was obviously his name and his face on the license. (Welcome to the Bush regime.) When it came time for Rick’s turn, he gave the guy the slip, the guy checked around for it and coming up empty, said “It must have gone back out for delivery. It should be delivered by 2 PM.” Rick pointed out that the slip said the envelope would be available for pick-up on August 31, after 9:30 AM, at the Kensington Post Office. And the counter guy, in a stellar display of bureaucracy, said “That’s just what it says on the slip. It went back out.”

“That’s just what it says on the slip.” Wow. Now if that is not fan-fucking-tastic customer service, I don’t know what is. Don’t tell me that I can pick something up at a post office when in reality, you intend to re-deliver it to me at the same time you said it was at the post office. Because waiting in line at the Kensington Post Office (and yes, I have used the actual branch name three times in this post in the hopes that Google will catch it and note my dissatisfaction) is right up there on my “list of favorite things to do” with “walking on broken glass” and “being disemboweled by a dull object.” I am glad I could share that pain with my boyfriend today. Thank you, Kensington Post Office! Now let’s see if your people actually did their job and delivered it today.

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