I think that my sister and grandmother should work for the post office.I forgot to respond to my Mystery Guild mailing last month. Let me rephrase that. I forgot to respond to one of the three Mystery Guild mailings last month. That's right. I said three. As if it wasn't hard enough to remember to respond when there is just one mailing a month. Now out of the blue Mystery Guild decided to throw three in there, most likely to trap people like me who were just expecting the one. Desperate economic times calls for desperate measures, I guess. As a result, I got a not-so-nice surprise in the mail yesterday--three books that I would never, ever read. (I think it's pretty much a rule that when you forget to respond to a main selection, that main selection will never be a book that's at the top of your must read list.)
Since I refuse to shell out $54 for books I do not want or need, I had to go to a place I hate going to almost as much as I hate going to Walmart--the post office. Why do I hate it? For starters, it's on the other side of town. To get there, I have to drive down one-way streets that seem to be congested at all hours of the day. Sometimes it takes me longer to get there than it does to get on the interstate and drive to downtown Atlanta. Once I pull into the parking lot, I feel like I'm riding a bicycle during a Nascar race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. I'm dodging speeding traffic right and left, and I never seem to have the right of way, even when I do. Then there is the line. The line is always to the door, and while there seems to numerous employees in the building, only one or two ever seem to be working the counter. (Kind of sounds like Walmart, doesn't it?) Once I'm done, I have to pull back onto those one way streets and past the courthouse where I used to work. Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know that that courthouse does not hold fond memories for me. Sooner or later I know that I'm going to drive past the courthouse while Judge Combover is walking out the front door. When that day comes, it's going to take every last ounce of willpower that I have not to give him the one-finger wave from my car. Consequently, the drive home is always filled with a sense of dread, in particular the dread that I'm going to be arrested for lewd and obscene behavior.
Anyway, as much as I didn't want to, I swallowed my pride, hate, and dread this morning so I could go to the post office. I was hoping to send the books back by media mail, since it seems to be cheaper than first class mail, but I questioned whether I could. You see Mystery Guild tried to soften the $54 blow by including "free" gift wrap, gift wrap that I'm sure I would have been charged for had I not returned it with the books. I didn't know if that gift wrap voided the media aspects of the package.
So I asked the postal employee who was working the counter if it did. This was her response: "Well, I'd have to weigh the gift wrap to tell you."
That response wouldn't have bothered me if I had shown up with a big box that could have theoretically contained a roll or two of wrapping paper. However, I didn't show up with such a box. I showed up with the box that the books came in. If any of you are members of Mystery Guild, Doubleday, Literary Guild, or the Book of the Month Club, you know exactly what that box looks like. It's only big enough to fit the books inside. In fact the box fits the books so snugly that it's almost like the warehouse shrink-wrapped the books in cardboard. There is no room for a roll of gift wrap. At most the box can hold is one folded-up sheet.
Which is what I told Post Office Polly, more or less. The thing is I shouldn't have had to tell her that at all. She should have looked at the size of the box, which was the size of three, hardback books stacked on top of each other, and realized that logically any gift wrap stuck inside could not have weighed more than a piece of paper. After all, the last time I checked, paper is exactly what the majority of gift wrap is made from. It is not, as far as I know, made from sheets of steel. That realization, however, seemed just out of Post Office Polly's mental reach. She vacantly stared at the box for another minute, sighed, and then rang it up as Media Mail like she was doing me a favor.
Now I know why my mail is delivered to the wrong address so often. The post office will hire anyone, even those who don't get that 2 + 2 = 4 and paper doesn't weigh as much as steel.
Now onto something that was delivered correctly, a blog award. Vicki from Frugal Mom Knows Best has given me the One Lovely Blog Award. The rules say to pass it onto 15 new blog discoveries. I still haven't come up with a list of 15 new blogs for that other award that required it so I guess what I need to do is combine the two awards and pass them out to the same 15 blogs or, in the alternative, come up with a list of 30 blogs. Either way, the list is going to take some work, and I tend to procrastinate at times. Just in case it takes me a month to get the list posted, I wanted to say thank you to Vicki now so she knows that I greatly appreciate the "lovely blog" endorsement. Thanks, Vicki! Hopefully, I'll be able to get that list up and the award passed out in a few days.
By the way, Vicki, I know that you said on your blog that there was a second award, but I'm having my own dumb moment today. I wasn't sure if the second was the Best Blog or the Friends. I didn't want to be embarrassed and pass on the wrong one (I almost did that once--long story), so if you could let me know, I'll post it as well. Thanks.
