Friday, December 23, 2005
TWO MISTAKES. Not a good day. I was already hurried and harried when I found out as I was leaving for work that one of the two books I slated for resale in The Great Bookshelf Reorganization of 12/20/05 had found a buyer at Amazon Marketplace. But I'm a good guy, and the buyer requested "expedited" shipping, and so I thought maybe I could get the thing in the mail in some semblance of a Christmas timetable.
First I tried printing U.S. Postal Service labels from the quasi-governmental agency's Web site, but the book I sold is heavy, and to ship the thing in my own packaging is prohibitively expensive compared with shipping it in a flat-rate Priority Mail box (and I'm not that good a guy). I thought about walking the three blocks from work to the awful 14th Street post office, but on the way in I found an unlikely parking space in the 1400 block of K Street. Excellent!
Here, I admit, is the point where my expectations became unrealistic. You'd think that a post office would be the best place to find flat-rate Priority Mail boxes. You'd be wrong. (Yes, I know it's the week before Christmas. But so, I presume, does the U.S. Postal Service.)
Heading in to work, I discovered that I did something I almost never do, and I hate doing -- I forgot my identification badge. So I apologetically sign in, and the guard asks for ID. I hand over my driver's license, and then he asks: "What's your last name?" Uh . . . the one that's on the card I just handed you?
"Williams?"
Yeah. Yeah, that's it.
First I tried printing U.S. Postal Service labels from the quasi-governmental agency's Web site, but the book I sold is heavy, and to ship the thing in my own packaging is prohibitively expensive compared with shipping it in a flat-rate Priority Mail box (and I'm not that good a guy). I thought about walking the three blocks from work to the awful 14th Street post office, but on the way in I found an unlikely parking space in the 1400 block of K Street. Excellent!
Here, I admit, is the point where my expectations became unrealistic. You'd think that a post office would be the best place to find flat-rate Priority Mail boxes. You'd be wrong. (Yes, I know it's the week before Christmas. But so, I presume, does the U.S. Postal Service.)
Heading in to work, I discovered that I did something I almost never do, and I hate doing -- I forgot my identification badge. So I apologetically sign in, and the guard asks for ID. I hand over my driver's license, and then he asks: "What's your last name?" Uh . . . the one that's on the card I just handed you?
"Williams?"
Yeah. Yeah, that's it.
