I'm getting paid to do this

Fraught with peril

You would have thought that a job where you routinely drive $50,000 automobiles would involve higher stakes than one where you sell people 37 cent stamps. Wrong. Today I managed to misplace a roll of stamps. Literally mis-place, not lose. I left them with the rest of Biola's mail at the local post office, rather than keep them with me to deliver to the proper department. So, unless the sorter who came across them was feeling generous and returns them tomorrow, I'm out $37 (or more, depending on how many rolls I placed amiss). Then I returned to find out that I had forgotten to have a girl fill out a customs slip for the package she was sending to a serviceman. Meaning we can't send it, and she doesn't know it. Thankfully it's finals week, so I'm sure she'll just be hanging around campus for the next several days.......or maybe she can make it a Valentines present. With cars, there are few ways to screw up, with those few being especially easy to avoid. Here, there are an infinite number of ways to screw up, and they all involve money or the expectations of others. Yes, tampering with mail is a federal offence; but I don't know what you do when you murph things up out of sheer booglification. If I were someone else, I would say shoot them...

Once you pop

I was walking past one of the dorms on campus today when I heard the Newsboys' "Love, Liberty, Disco" blaring. I was pushing a dolly with some packages on it, and I noticed myself starting to stride in rhythm with the very bad song. And then I looked around. And everyone was moving or stepping in time. I was in the middle of a Pringles commercial. Had I been chewing gum, I no doubt would have been chomping in time with my walking in time with the beat. Somewhere in this there is a principle begging to be applied practically.

A $52.50 coat rack

Today, I saw Les Miserables for the fourth time, this time with my parents and brother, none of whom had seen it before through any medium. As my sister ended up having to back out after we bought the tickets, we had an extra seat to put our jackets on, having tried but failed to sell a single ticket shortly before the performance. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.

Prior to that, our handbell choir played at church (which was coincidentally my parents' first time visiting my current Episcopal parish). It was quite the rude shock when we arrived and found out that our director was at home attempting to prevent premature labor. No doubt this was induced by stress caused by our lack of progress over the last several rehearsals. The organist/choir director filled in for her, and I think we managed to fool most of the people listening. Until the end when our highest bell ringer forgot what we were doing up there, and O Come All Ye Faithful went MIA for the last page.

I finished the evening off with a three-hour converastion with my parents sitting in the parking lot outside my brother's dorm, probably to the amusement of any students looking out their windows. (Three people talking in a dark car for hours on end, not in an actual parking spot...) Got to hear about my parents' adventures raising three teen-age girls, their friends from college, and my great-great-great grandparents who lived in England in someplace called Moreland Close. Some day I'm going to find out more about it. My dad also suspects we're related to Edward Tiffin, the first governor of Ohio.

It's more than postage

A stamp is apparently a window to the soul.

Interjection--I am now working at Biola in the campus post office, I love the job, the Hilton is gone forever, and I am generally a happier person than I was in the previous two posts.--Interjection

Often, when people come in to buy a stamp, they ask to see which kinds we have. Admittedly, using fun stamps kind of makes you not care so much that letters now cost thirty-seven cents (fourty-nine if they're square). However, then you get those people who are mailing a grad school application, or resume, or rebate form or whatnot, and suddenly putting a stamp with Simba and Mufassa on the envelope is no more acceptable as using Brush Script font for the resume inside. So they end up choosing clouds, or maybe John Wayne. I have yet to tell these people that most likely a mail clerk on the other end will open the letter and forward the contents on to the correct person sans kiddy stamp. On the other hand, we have a few sheets of Happy Birthday stamps that are fun to give to people when you see they are mailing a Halmark card. I've almost gained hero status a few times.

And then there are those who push the inconsequential envelope way too far. An older gentleman came in Friday and wanted to buy a book of stamps. So I show him his choices, one with Santa ornaments, and one with a Renaissance painting of the Madonna and Child.

"I'll take those, I don't worship the Virgin."

I had to supress a chuckle as I realized he was being no more facetious than pious. Later, a woman came in and asked for non-religious Christmas stamps. So we get upset when courtesy clerks replace "Merry Christmas" with various alternatives, yet we find that the United States Postal Service has somehow taken Christianity above and beyond the spirit of Christmas.

In other news, I went out and bought and decorated a Christmas tree for our apartment today, and it smells great. I don't care if I'll only get to enjoy it for almost two weeks.