Remember the rant about my central post office (might I add, my annex post office in my grocery store is nothing but sweetness and light–they give my son cheerful and exciting stamps on his hand whenever I take him in! Nevermind that the ink is likely meant strictly for paper use and thus runs all over if he so much as waves his hand in the breeze or, God forbid, touches his shirt! Nevermind that, because we are speaking nice about the post office today, lest we be visited by More Wrath of the Post Office Deity)? In the two weeks following that rant, the following three things occurred:

**A package mailed to me on Tuesday, February 5, the same day as the rant, took two weeks to get here from St. Louis. Two weeks! And though the ship method was one of the less expensive ones, it still wasn’t cheap or anything like it.

**A birthday card mailed to my mother three days before her birthday, containing cash in a denomination I wouldn’t normally send through the mail, took a week and a half to get to her. The cash was intact, though. I consider it kind of a warning shot across the bow (Straighten out your mouth or next time we’ll take your mother’s birthday money, unnerstand?).

**A credit card bill, mailed more or less a week before it was due, returned to me the day after it was due–sheared in half. I kid you not, it looked like somebody simply picked it up in both hands and r-i-p-p-e-d right down the middle. This abomination (but only the one half–invoice, check, and all) was placed into an outer envelope with a letter wrapped around in bland bureaucrese–“We are sorry for the damage to your mail … yadda yadda.” Next time we’ll burn the whole bill and you’ll never know it was lost until the late fee shows up on your credit account, got it?

And did I mention how much I used to enjoy the post office in my small, friendly hometown? They’re great, hardly any lines and helpful people eager to handle your package with the utmost in delicacy, even if they charge the same heinous rates as the big surly post office here–talking nice about the post office today, see?

All of which leads me to the Quote of the Day, from my friend Aughey who sent me the two-week package: “The shipping was ridiculous considering how long it took to get there. I think I could have strapped it on the back of a horse and slapped its butt and it would have gotten there sooner.”