Unexpected Holiday Cheer!

I don’t know about you, but the fact that Christmas is less than a week away is, quite simply, mind boggling to me!  Tuesday night I realized that if presents were going to get to intended recipients in time for Christmas they should have gone in the mail by Monday.  OOOPS!

As such, I stayed up waaaaaay too late Tuesday wrapping, wrapping, packing, and even more wrapping!  Early Wednesday morning, I head to the post office with a bit a dread in my pit of my tummy.  I’m not going to lie, going to the post office in the middle of the holiday shipping season in New York City is not a fun or exciting adventure.  I mean, it’s exciting (in not a good way) and it’s always an adventure!  I went in after Thanksgiving to mail some pupcicle cookies to my newest pupcicle niece and I stood in line for an hour!  AN HOUR!  Alright fine, perhaps it was more like 50 minutes, but anything over 15 minutes might as well be an hour in my humble opinion.

Adding to the dread was the fact that I didn’t not have enough shipping boxes, so I’d have to go in and figure out which to use and then how to ship and bleh bleh bleh…

I opt for the post office at the ferry building.  I figured the line would probably be the shortest, although you’re dealing with people trying to catch ferries, so the customers can be intense in an under-their-breath-commenting-about-hurry-up-I-have-to-catch-the-ferry sense of urgency about the place.  So I had a plan going in.  I was going to just have separate transactions.  I’d first mail the boxes ready to go, ask the USPS worker their opinion about how to ship the rest, and then go pack my own boxes.

Sheila, my USPS lady, had other ideas for me.  “That’s stupid,” she twanged with her thick Staten Island accent, “I gawt another teller–he can deal with everyone else.”  You sure?  Because I don’t mind–I got to the ferry an hour before I needed to be on a ferry (I WAS PREPARED, man!) “What are you tawkin’ about–don’t be crazy!  We’re doing this.”  Okay, we’re doing this.

So box by box, I placed all my presents on the scale and Sheila would tell me the best (aka least expensive) way to ship it and then she packed my beloved gifts in each box while I wrote out the tags.  Twenty minutes later and nearly $15 less than I had budgeted all of my gifts were happily on their way.

I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment and to celebrate and wait for my ferry, I went and had breakfast–with a coffee toast to Sheila, who truly embodies the spirit of customer service and made my holidays a bit brighter!  I hope Santa will be bringing Sheila something spectacular for Christmas…I know that Santa-Shez will be bringing her a big ol’ plate of cookies!!

Fa la la la la la