Post Office Madness

Have you ever noticed how many freaky, weird, and let's face it, obnoxious people congregate at post offices? Why is this? For instance just last evening there was a man at the main Santa Rosa post office with a stupid looking Hawaiian shirt, weird shorts, and flyaway eyebrows (see below). There were maybe twenty minutes to get all of us sorry slobs waiting in line through said line before the place closed, and he spent maybe ten of it conversing with a postal employee running one of three working stations. It was something about his recent pick up of stamps, he was overcharged, undercharged, I don't know. The problem, or should I say problems lied in the fact that the infinitely patient postal employee explained the situation perhaps 45,000 times, all the while our islander-esque friend continued to ask essentially the same question. As if this were not enough, in between the failed attempts and having another go at the stupid question/stupid answer routine, they would exchange totally random, irrelevent, and nauseatingly cheerful bits of conversation. All the while our friend chortled, giggled, and guffawed with a mirth known only to him and his kind. And maybe the postal employee. It was more than small talk, yet less than close aquaintances might discuss. Interestingly, I really couldn't tell whether or not the employee was enjoying this little exchange, but our new friend certainly was. He was one of the faceless droves of weirdos that frequent post offices, jury selections, the dmv, and other necessary government institutions. He was cheerful, optimistic, and so gosh darn amused not only to be alive, but also to be spending his time at the Main Santa Rosa Post Office at approximately 5:47pm on a Wednesday evening. So help me God, he was excited about it.

Why the hell is he so damned happy? Is there something we should all know? Is there a wonderful and exciting secret that the post office offers? Where is he going, and where does he live? Why does he need so many stamps? Why doesn't he understand the employee? Why doesn't she get snotty with him like I would? Is she actually enjoying this, or is she really imagining as she patiently outlines the problem at hand just how she might "accidentally" back over him in the parking lot when she leaves? Why does he wear those clothes? Does he always act like this? Maybe it isn't confined to government offices, maybe he's like this at the dentist, or when he gets pulled over, or even when he's affixing the aforementioned stamps to whatever it is he affixes them to. If so, what's the matter with him? Doesn't he know he's being obnoxious?

This brings me to the eyebrows. Everyone's seen them, hell maybe you're even sporting a pair, or worse yet just one of them, right now. Those long, fluffy, bushy, frightening eyebrows that don't lay flat against ones' brow but in fact swoop and swoosh upward and outward as though they might take flight at any moment? Hence the FLYaway eyebrows? Ehhh? Ehhh? Suuure, you know what I mean.

Well this brings us back to our island-ready friend in the fabulous downtown post office. Why does he wear his eyebrows like that? Doesn't he know it looks weird? Does he worry that maybe they might frighten small children? I think I was frightened of such things as a small child. How is it that a person who's so weird in other ways is also weird in this way too? I'm used to seeing people that are weird and/or obnoxious in one or perhaps two select ways. He displayed the entire gamut of weird and obnoxious behavior that he was capable of. How curious.

I could go on, but perhaps I shouldn't.



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a lot of people look to the horizon
just a few look in your face
-Basti