Why I Don’t Live at the P. O.

During my visit to the local post office today, I was reminded of a fabulous short story by Eudora Welty entitled "Why I Live at the P. O." (which happens to be a great study in linguistics, as it's written in the dialect of wartime Mississippi).

As I filled out my documentation with the oh-so-stylish tethered pen, I heard out of the corner of my right ear a woman's voice joking with someone else in line, apparently in response to their advancement in the line and a subsequent fake-out by a clerk, "Well good, I was afraid she was going on break."

The clerk scenery at the P. O. never really changes, so I find it much more entertaining to watch the customers. I initially deemed us to be a rather unexciting group as I moved into the lead spot in the line. We were just a handful of unremarkable customers, but one did catch my eye; perhaps it was the summer plaid blazer she was wearing, or her shock of pearl grey bisque hair. She was a little over five feet tall, with a wide, tanned leather face and narrow eyes, and an equally-wide, casually upswept hairdo. By all appearances, she was a seemingly unassuming octogenarian who stood poised before the female clerk second from the right, from whom she was attempting to purchase a book of stamps.

She asked for stamps. The clerk brought out a sheet. Then the world stopped for a few minutes.

The woman examined the stamps and frowned, while some invisible hand turned her volume knob up two clicks.

"Why, these aren't regular stamps! I don't want these! Give me some regular stamps, wouldya!" She waved the stamps in the air for emphasis. The customer had a surprisingly good natured lilt to her drawl, on the verge of a laugh or a chuckle. I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head a bit, studying the customer's body language. No hostility detected.

But the pretty female clerk didn't know whether to laugh or press the hidden alarm button. She smiled a waxy, vacant smile at the customer, and stepped away to try to find a different sheet. The second the clerk turned her back, the customer's volume shot up three more clicks.

"Excuse me. Excuse me! I didn't know you were going on break."

Where I stood, I felt my mouth drop open and my eyes widen in surprise. And then an uncontrollable smile started its tic at the corners of my mouth. I was transfixed.

The clerk immediately presented another selection. The customer presented another display of waving the stamps in her left hand, showing them to her clerk and the one to her left.

"Don't y'all have just plain ol' stamps? You know, the kind with the flags on them? I want the ones with the flags on them."

And silly me, here I was thinking she was referring to the licky kind of stamps when she called them "regular." The female clerk fought a smile. The male clerk next to her popped his head up over the divider and asked her what the customer needed, while the customer continued talking about regular stamps, and waving the obviously irregular stamps around.

The male clerk smiled at his peer and told her he had some flag stamps, and the female clerk looked relieved. But the customer heard him, and before he could hand the stamps over the divider, told her clerk she was going over there, because he had regular stamps, the ones with flags, and she immediately left her position and resumed it one station to her left. On cue, I left the line and went to the abandoned station with the female clerk.

The octogenarian chatted at the male clerk incessantly as I made my transaction. The elderly woman's volume knob had been turned down to its original position, so I didn't really pay attention to what she was saying. My clerk still looked a little frazzled, though, so I leaned down over the counter and whispered to her that I thought she could use a break. She cracked a smile and nodded.

As the male clerk was completing his customer's transaction, for some reason I couldn't ascertain, he had to get something from another counter which prompted an immediate

"Excuse me. Excuse me! I didn't know you were going on break!"

And not just once. Twice this time, with two more upward clicks each. When she spoke, I detected the subtle laugh under her words, and she was waving her empty right hand rapidly back and forth in the air. Her steamer-trunk-sized patchwork leather purse with its silver horseshoe buckle rested on the counter, rendered immobile by her left hand. The clerk hurried back to her.

As I stood one station to her right, I found myself giggling quietly, feeling something akin to admiration at her sheer brazenness. I completed my purchase, tapped the counter, and told the female clerk in my normal voice, "Okay, you can go on break now." She gave me a wide grin and thanked me, giving me a wave.

Leaving the P. O., still giggling, I thought about the silver-haired tornado I had just experienced. And I liked her. A lot. She communicated well, she was effective, and she kept us all on our toes. She got what she wanted and didn't have to be nasty to do it. In some weird way, she helped others meet her expectations. And she was a snappy dresser, too. That's the kind of woman I can only hope to be at that age: five feet of dynamite, with dentures made of brimstone.

As inexplicably tickled as I was, though, I realized she had a very valid point. As we age, our time becomes much more valuable to us. I imagine that at her age, every minute we spend on this side of the dirt counts. I think that's why I get so exasperated with self-centered people who thrive on wasting other people's time, particularly mine.

It's funny, but this encounter made me remember the exact moment I entered into adulthood.

It happened the first time I put on a watch.