The Post Office

The Post Office is a fine example of what I understand was once a great British institution which now never fails to wear down your spirit.












This is prompted in particular by my annual pilgrimage to send off my accounts to Gateshead by recorded delivery. As usual, the queue was like a food drop in Darfur with manners. The assembled populace was being very British by being affronted by the madness of it all while simultaneously doing nothing to improve the situation.

The queues are phenomenal and I wonder how many in the line actually need to be there within what is usually considered The Lunchtime Slot (I would argue anywhere from midday to 2pm). This is when working people have to use their lunch break to sort out their affairs - many of which involve the use of The Post Office.

In my Post Office, there is the usual bank of counters with a snaking line of shuffling inmates and a till-counter for more conventional shopping type transactions.

Almost every facility today was in some way compromised, and for some reason this caused People With Incredibly Complicated And Time-Consuming Transactions to suddenly materialise in front of me.

This gave me plenty of time for me to utilise my increasing anger to notice more things that annoy me even more unsympathetically such as:

• Why are people queuing up to buy Lottery tickets when you can get those fucking things in a million other places in the High Street?
• Could there be a front-of-house person to field questions so I don't have to queue to find out that I can only do that at the other counter?
• Do we really need scratchcards here (and, by extension, the morons packing out the place to buy them) when it takes most of the afternoon to post a fucking package?

In my head, I go to my happy place where suddenly I grow two feet taller, stride past The Grimly Resigned and make a grand gesture on their behalf. I pick up the teller (maybe 120lbs wet) and, holding him like a pencil in my enormous hands, I proceed to write my list of demands on the road outside using his face as the lead.

The police helicopter will be able to read this from the air. Whenever I see this on the news from my cell, I will note that annoyingly the lines appear a little wonky.

When I am left with a pair of shoes and a couple of bloody stumps, I pack them into a padded envelope and post them home to his mother, along with a Post-It note saying 'Try Again'. The queue has gone down quite a bit now, and I don't believe the value of the contents to exceed £40 so no need for any insurance.

Of course I do none of these things because I have stuff to lose and I am doomed to dream up what I believe to be satisfying scenarios which I dare not perform. Instead I do as my fellow inmates do, tutting, rolling my eyes occasionally and sharing looks of stoic reverence whilst getting a little bit more excited each time a counter becomes free.