Postage Due? Fuuuuuu....

Damn it. I'm 99% sure this attempted delivery was baseball cards. Now I gotta go down to the horrible post office and stand in line for 10-15 minutes for a horrible interaction to the horrible postal workers who man the registers at my local post office and give them a buck eighty-three.

I'm not sure what this is. I don't have any eBay wins I was expecting today. I've got a Listia win I've been waiting on for 11 days or so.. maybe it's that. I've got 2 or 3 trade reciprocations in the pipeline.. maybe it's one of those.

This is the 2nd time I've gotten one of these orange notices since I moved here mid February. Head's up, prospective trade partners, my post office are sticklers for correct postage. Don't just slap a Forever stamp on a bubble mailer and assume it'll be fine. Grrrr. Oh well.

I'm temped to hide a couple bucks in change on my front porch somewhere and put a note in my mailbox for my letter carrier saying, "In case of postage due, check the flower pot" (or whatever).

I remember sometimes in the past at my old place, they'd give me a note that was like, "hey, postage due, buddy" but still deliver the item, and include a mini manila envelope for you to put funds and leave for them to pick up next day. But not these guys. Maybe there's a limit for that.. like, over a buck, you gotta stand in line in the hellhole that is the postoffice.

I hate standing in line at the post office and deal with the soulless pricks who work there. When I mail stuff, I always use the automated kiosk unless I absolutely can't, such as International packages to mail. (Sorry, non-US peeps, but not only is it costly, it's a pain in the ass.)

I've dealt with the postoffice several hundreds of times in my life. Let's pay tribute to the cool postal workers I've interacted with:

• El Cajon, CA - Jamaican lady who is proud of her hair - She was not overly nice, but still a decent person and did me right.
• El Cajon, CA - Mannish fat white lady - Reasonable friendly. I remember once she let me slide with sending a box of magazines media rate even though they should have been 2nd class or someshit. She was cool.
• El Cajon, CA - Chubby Laotian lady - A rarity indeed! A friendly postal worker! She was really sweet.
• Downtown Portland, OR - Friendly black lady - Another genuinely kind postal worker. Her post office has since closed (PSU post office), I'm not sure where she ended up, but I hope she's doing well.

And there you have it. From the hundreds of postal workers I've dealt with in my time, there are the four I wouldn't wish horrible misfortunes upon.

I should clarify that letter carriers I've interacted with have generally been cool. I'm directed my vitriol on those who deal with customers in the post office. In their defense, I'm sure they deal with a ton of assholes and idiots everyday, and so their souls have been beaten to dust and now they simply don't give a shit about anyone or anything. Power games with the poor saps who have to bow down to them are how they get their kicks.

Thank God for the automated machines.