Drain and drain! What is drain?
One of the things I hate most is going out specifically to do one particular errand that needs to be done today (because it should've been done days ago), after carefully making sure that one has everything one needs to complete the errand, only to discover (after an hour of driving around to different places) that it's literally impossible to complete the errand that day.
This happens to me a lot, and may be one of the reasons that I hate running errands so much.
Today it was the Post Office. Now, normally I adore the post office. I know a lot of people complain about it, but most of my interactions with them have ranged from good to excellent. But I have two quibbles with their policies: first, they're not open late enough on Saturday; second, they have this ridiculous new "security" policy whereby you're not allowed to send a package that weighs more than 16 ounces in any way other than by handing it across the counter to a postal clerk.
So today I arrived at the post office with my package, and was halfway across the floor to the counter when someone came up suddenly behind me and said, "WE'RE CLOSED!" as if I was a moron for not knowing that. Sure enough, they'd closed at 1:00 (though there were no physical barriers in place), and it was now 1:15. So I went to the weighing station and weighed my package, and found that it weighed 18.5 ounces and would cost $5.75 to mail. I had $6. There was no obvious way to obtain $5.75 worth of postage from the stamp machines (or even $6 worth of postage). I figured I would go to the other nearby post office, more likely to be open later, and would stop at my credit union's ATM along the way.
After a bunch of driving and a bunch of hassles, I got some cash and went to the other post office. Which had also closed at 1. I bought a bunch of stamps, put $5.79 worth of them on my package, went to mail it, and saw the sign saying that you have to hand packages over 1 pound to a clerk.
I asked a nearby clerk if that really applied to a pre-stamped 1-pound 2-ounce package. She told me to go around back. I did, and the guy there told me I had to hand it to a clerk up front.
I called the USPS 800 number and asked them what would happen if I, um, accidentally put an 18-ounce package in one of those big blue mailboxes on street corners. The woman there seemed to be unfamiliar with the concept of mailboxes ("If they accept it from you, then they'll probably deliver it") and with the 16-ounce limit ("So you're saying you only put 16 ounces of postage on it?"). Eventually she told me that they would probably return it to my home. I didn't think to ask what would happen if there was no return address. I mean, come on—if they really believe it's a security problem to allow people to mail something over 16 ounces via a mailbox, then why would they deliver it to my home? Wouldn't they take it apart looking for bombs or something?
So I drove to Mail N Motion, the great mailing-supplies and post-office-box store that handled my mail while I was traveling for a year. And the guy there said that since I'd already put stamps on the package, I had to hand it to an actual postal clerk at an actual post office.
Yes, if you want to mail a package in this great nation of ours that weighs more than the magical number sixteen ounces, you must physically go to a post office during the hours when they're open and physically hand it to a highly-trained clerk, who will no doubt be able to immediately tell (much better than any other kind of clerk could) whether or not you're a terrorist. Feh.
Anyway. Enough of that story. I drove over to Orchard Supply Hardware (which is often my nemesis), figuring I might as well get kicked by customer service a few more times while I was out, but on the way I ran into Fiona Ritchie on the radio and my day got considerably better. I got the plumbing snake I needed at OSH, stood in line for only about ten minutes longer than was necessary (due to cleverly attempting to circumvent the evil line demons by not getting in the short line with the confused-looking customer and clerk who appeared to be taking forever, only of course the instant I moved away from that line to the apparently short but actually interminable one next door, they stopped being confused and finished their transaction), got home, and—mirabile dictu!—successfully cleaned out my bathtub drain!
So now I can take showers in my own bathroom again, instead of in the guest bathroom. And even, presumably, baths, should I be so inclined. Take that, ants!
Btw, while checking the original quote for this entry's title, I came across this amusing-out-of-context line from a Techsploitation column: "Most of us are like Kirk, savagely hunting for the brains of our friends who have somehow managed to lose them...." Me, I'm too busy savagely hunting for my own brain.
