Post Office PTSD

So last weekend was a bank holiday and I was looking forward to a nice relaxing 4 day weekend. Typically Thursdays are gaming night and somewhere between finishing my office job, getting battered at AoS and arriving home at 9pm I had somehow managed to get 7 orders come through. 3 of these were dice trays for an upcoming tournament, 2 were custom orders and 2 were template sets. Not a problem!

Turns out it was a slight problem because in the last few days I’d had laser trouble (which is now fixed), a consignment order and since I was still recovering from the last bring and buy at Sanctuary Gaming Centre it meant that I had nothing pre-made. Not a sausage. Not wanting to disappoint any customers I set to work and the lasers were running into the early hours of the morning to get everything ready for posting the next day. Those keen eyed amongst you will already know that since it was a bank holiday the post offices were closed on Friday and so there really wasn’t any rush but still everything was sorted and I figured I would just take them Saturday. I even checked the website for my local post office and found the opening hours were 9-12 so again, not a problem! I’d just post them out in the morning. I’d even be able to have lay in since they were open until 12 right?

Saturday morning arrives and I was blasted out of bed at an ungodly hour by Mrs Scoffer who had been appointed weekend events coordinator. Apparently there was a unanimous vote, which I slept through, and she had a whole raft of ideas of what we should be doing. After falling over the cat while trying to reach the life giving caffeine I mumbled something about going to the post office and apparently that had already been taken care of. I don’t mean she had actually taken the precariously balanced packages to the post office, she had just planned the first activity to be in the centre of the local village which happened to be next to the post office. So off we went to wander around the local monthly market, buy some bread, hand made jewellery and to see the greek lady for our monthly top up of snacks.

Post office was closed. It wasn’t supposed to be closed. I even juggled all the parcels I was holding long enough to dig out my phone and point out to Mrs Scoffer the website said it was open. The steel shutters across the door told me otherwise. I traipsed back to the car to put the parcels down so I could carry more shopping before and decided to finish walking around the rest of the market. One of the trips back from the car I checked if other post offices were open in the area and found one in the town centre that was open until 5 so we agreed that after 2 more armfuls of shopping that would be our next destination. She didn’t mind since it was on the way to the crafters fair that was about 20 miles in roughly the same direction.

Obviously the traffic was a nightmare since it was a nice day and a bank holiday but after checking the map of where I was going we agreed parking was also going to be a nightmare. So I dropped Mrs Scoffer off at a coffee shop, checked my phone again that said the post office was “5 minutes walk” and told her to order me a coffee in 10 mins. Off I went into the great unknown. Somehow, I’m not sure how, but must have accidentally selected Mountain Goat on the directions app rather than walking because I ended up walking up what seemed like Ben Nevis. Not only was it up hill but it was also cobble stones. Then there was a construction site that said I couldn’t go up here so I needed to walk back the way I’d come and go around. Once I got to the other side of the building there was obviously another construction site (which was apparently replacing the cobblestones with more jagged rocks) which sent me around another building, through some court yard into the middle of the pedestrian area, across 2 roads and finally to the Post Office. Which wasn’t actually a Post office but a counter within WHSmiths.

It was ok though, I had gotten my parcels to where they needed to be and the goal was in sight! Except there was about 6 people in the queue in front of me and despite there being at least 10 counters for the post office obviously there was only 1 member of staff working that day. I did spot in the corner however a self service parcel thingy which I figured would save a ton of time as I smugly walked past the queue to the machines. I put the first parcel on the scales, entered some details about size and where it was going and….nothing. Pressed the button again and still nothing. Pushed the button harder and a network connection error appeared on the screen because apparently it had no internet. Neither did the other one next to it so then had the humiliating walk past the 6 the people in the queue and the 3 more that had joined it while I was fighting with the T1000 in the corner.

Eventually I made it to the counter and the only member of staff I had seen since entering the building started printing out labels. She did exactly 2 and the machine broke. I heard grumblings from behind me, curse words from behind the counter and a loud crunching noise from the machine itself as it happily devoured the label it was supposed to be printing. Clearly a tech expert she gently tapped the machine and tried again. Then she punched it while muttering “stupid thing” and began banging it on the desk. She then apologized and fed another label into the printer which whined and crunched even louder than the first time before devouring that one too. The tuts and tapping feet behind me were getting louder as the queue had grown to 12 people while the lady behind the counter threatened, pleaded, spanked and begged the machine to work. Eventually she stuck a screwdriver inside it, popped the top off, removed half a dozen labels and slammed the lid closed before pushing another label into the machine and getting the successful printing noise. Pretty sure someone at the back of the queue was applauding while it did the next 2 labels and then obviously died again. Told her I would do the rest later and just send those 4, paid and dodged all the venomous stares of the other customers as I headed to the door.

Outside I figured I would message the Mrs to tell her I was on my way back and found a whole string of messages along the lines of: You there yet? Almost done? Your coffee is getting cold. I finished mine. You done? Fine, i’ll drink yours. Did you get lost? etc etc

You will be glad to know however that by the time I got back to the coffee shop I had to buy my own drink, Mrs Scoffer was bouncing off the walls with her rapid fire coffee consumption and we did finally make it to the crafter fair where we bought more bread, more home made jewellery and a 4 foot long crocheted cat because “we don’t have one of these”