It had to happen eventually. Now that I am the mother of three, it's true, that I avoid the Post Office at all costs. The Post Office at Christmas is an especially tricky place, today was no exception.
For starters, my packages were not ready upon arrival which means that I had to gather information while sitting on the parking lot. This gave my darlings an opportunity to open the windows and scream loudly, surprising the hosts of people walking into the PO in front of me. One woman in a black sweater stared over her shoulder like she wondered what was going on in our car.
On our first entry into the parental torture chamber post office, I carried my little son on my hip and gave the girls each one package to carry. This was detrimental to my son's life, as screamed loudly for a package to hold. While we approached the long line of folks mailing off Christmas goodies, he added thrashing and arching to the screaming, which was fun. Realizing that this was going to be a spirited trip, I took my brood and packages back to the car to retrieve the stroller (maybe I should have just gone home). He really liked being strapped down.
After we entered the PO for a second time, I was trying to ignore the screaming, when I asked a postal worker for assistance in finding the correct form to fill out. I was almost certain that he handed me the wrong form, but seeing that he was a postal worker I trusted his judgement. I found a quiet corner by the post office boxes to fill out my forms and to try to muffle the sound of my angry two year old. Bless his big sister's, they were trying so hard to help, but in those moments of panic and sweat and trying to look like I had it together, everything they did felt wrong. At this point the stroller almost flipped over from the screaming and thrashing but I somehow managed to catch it with my foot and continue filling in the form. Just like that, Maggie handed Coop a piece of plain paper and he stopped yelling. Had I known that all he needed was a piece of paper to soothe his soul, I'm sure the abyss of trash that is my purse had many of those lurking in it's depths.
Now we got to get in line with all the other people. One gracious man, who felt the need to comment, said "oh, look at all your little helpers." To which I just nodded and smiled and tried not to make eye contact with anyone else. Because they are in the Christmas spirit, Cooper and Maggie started to sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus as loudly as possible, I tried to shush them just a bit, which just fueled Cooper's fire...Louder and louder he got! I was trying not to laugh as were most of the people in the line. Finally, we got up to counter and the nice man waiting on me says "Ma'am, you filled out the wrong form." Of course I did, because I am in the land of post office torture.
He hands me the new forms and Cooper starts to yell "get me out, get me out here!" Another passer by makes a "wow, your hands are full" comment to which I want to respond "why yes I do, would you like to fill this form out for me?"
The postal worker moves me to the side to finish my delivery and hands me over to his co-worker, a lady, who I am guessing felt my pain because when I looked up to move disheveled hair from my face, she was definitely laughing.
She took my packages, I curtsied to the crowd, they thanked me for the entertainment and we exited the building.
When we got to the car, I told the kids that we needed to snap a selfie because we made it in and out of the post office at Christmas-time. Then that same lady in the black sweater passed our car again and again looked at us like we were a spectacle. Which let's be honest, we kind of were!
Until next year...Happy post officing!
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