A Trip to the Post Office

Shortly after Thanksgiving I always take a time-consuming trip to the post office.  I have my Christmas cards all made out, and I also have calendars that I send as gifts to my European cousins.  I have to buy stamps, domestic and international postage, and put them on all the cards.  I put the calendars into large, padded envelopes which the post office sells, and address them all.  Then the postal employee hands me customs declaration forms for each calendar which I have to fill out.  I end up spending a good portion of the morning at the post office.

With the pandemic I was not looking forward to spending so much time in a busy and relatively small, indoor space.  I bought all my stamps ahead of time and had the cards all ready to send.  I told my friend Gayle about how it takes me forever at post office each year to get everything done.  She said that at her post office the customs forms are sitting out at a counter.  On her next trip there she picked up a bunch of them for me and dropped them off at my house.  On Thanksgiving evening I filled out the form for each of the six calendars I was going to send.  Another step completed ahead of time.

On Friday morning I donned my face mask and a face shield and took my cards, calendars and customs forms to my local post office.  I arrived at 8:30 A.M. when it opens.  I found the padded envelopes that fit my calendars... fortunately there were just six left... and addressed them.  After finishing that there was still no line of customers, and I went right up to the clerk.  He then began a laborious process for each calendar.  He weighed it, printed off the postage sticker, typed in all the customs information, printed off another sticker, separated the multi-copy customs forms... one copy is retained by the post office and I keep one copy... and then  put the remaining copies in a clear, plastic envelope which is taped to the front of the package.  The total bill was quite hefty and I paid with my credit card.  There were no other clerks available to wait on customers.  I felt guilty because by the time my transaction was completed there was a line going out the door.  Even with the preparations that I had done ahead of time, I had spent an hour in the post office.