It's All in the Details

This week I spent a morning in postal hell. I work during evening classes on Tuesdays so I usually make a long list of things-to-do for my morning and then end up snoozing 17 or 19 times until I finally drag myself out from under the comforter for some eggs and email before work. Tuesday morning however, I woke at 7.30 a.m. to pack up and arrive at the Atlantic Avenue USPS as they unlocked their doors. I had a bag with about 10 pounds of mail including—my last three grad school applications, an application for a summer residency, 40 handmade invitations for my cousin's wedding in Poland, and a thank you gift for a recent weekend getaway.

I've spent approximately 6 hours of my life over the last month in post office lines waiting for that all-important postmark date stamp, and delivery confirmation slip on each and every application packet. Some days as I rushed to the line, I noticed others fingering through slide sheets and wrapping carousels ahead of me. Maybe there really is a large concentration of artists in Brooklyn, or maybe I'm shit out of luck because 10% of the entire population is applying to the same programs I aim for.

As I arrived upon opening on Tuesday there were somehow already five people in line ahead of me. I waited for ten minutes until one of the two postal worker's light went off. I approached her with a smile and then noticed a NO DEBIT CARDS AT THIS REGISTER hand scrawled sign. I was sent back to the line. On my second turn I asked for the postal worker to weigh my slide carousel so I could estimate postage for the return envelope. I requested delivery confirmation for all my applications. I hadn't filled out the international contents form ahead of time. I asked to see his selection of stamps for my pretty wedding invitations. He became less and less accommodating and began to slam the bullet-proof glass door on his side of the counter. Then he lost it and began screaming at me for "not being prepared for posting."

I talked back. It went something like this "I am prepared, it seems that you aren't willing to do your job, I have several things to mail but as far as I know that isn't a crime." He began mumbling something behind the bullet-proof plexi and promptly tossed my slide carousel which hit the edge of the big mail laundry cart and toppled in. This felt like seeing my baby thrown across the room and landing head first in a pile of sharp edges. Something switched in me and I asked to see his manager. The manager came out with his fly down and I began to explain the situation. His eyes glazed over and he mumbled something about his employee following instructions. A growing line of people stared at me watching as my face became red, hovering somewhere between anger and tears, as I sweat in January heat. It was humiliating. The icing on the Atlantic Avenue USPS cake was that their void of LOVE stamps or anything beyond some leftover Disney Christmas stamps for the wedding invitations. I re-wrapped my wedding invites in their tissue paper and huffed my way out to a subway.

I still had a few hours before work began so I decided to visit another post office in Chelsea in search of the LOVE stamps. After another half hour line I arrived to the window to find they had only American flag or Stop Family Violence stamps to offer. The Stop Family Violence stamps had a picture drawn by a child of a stick figure crying; I decided this would not be the best omen for the wedding invitations. The post man directed me to the mothership of all New York post offices at 42nd Street. On the subway I scowled to myself wondering if I would ever find the goddamn LOVE stamps and if anyone receiving the invitations would even notice. I often find myself at the bottom of an avalanche of life-altering details only to realize that it is my own tunnel vision and mild OCD that has put me there.

The 42nd Street post office was like a futuristic machine with 100 windows for service, automated post-machines, an enormous spread of stamp designs; yet only two people were working at the front of the wind-around line. I waited for another 45 minutes, salivating over the prize— yellow stamps with two blue birds nuzzling each other so that the negative space between their necks made a heart. After my arduous wait I bought the "True Blue" bird LOVE stamps, caressed them for a minute and then pasted each envelope with a stamp at the perfect right angle a few millimeters from the corners' edge. I posted each envelope in a big swinging mailbox and left empty handed but satisfied.

My cousin's wedding is in one month in Poland, it will take a seven hour flight, navigating Polish roads in a rented car, purchasing another bridesmaid dress with money I don't have, and most likely having my hair formed to an unbecoming shape with a bottle of hairspray. All this seems par for the course, but the True Blue stamp expedition— if that is not LOVE then I don't know what is.