WordVixen.com

Anyone remember my post where I ranted about our neighbors next door who thought it was perfectly acceptable to have band practice (complete with microphone and amplifier) from 11pm till midnight? Well, thankfully, they moved out (or perhaps were kicked out- we don’t know for certain).

The new neighbors are nice-ish. They don’t talk to us, we don’t talk to them, it’s all good. And even though there seems to be a lot of them (teenage girl has about 6 friends over often, 20-something guy has a handful of friends over, and older couple- assuming parents- 20-something guy seems to have a wife and a baby and a toddler), we’re not really sure who all actually lives there, and who just visits a lot. Thankfully, someone in that house seems to be 3rd shift so we hardly ever hear them after whoever leaves soon after we come home.

This story is not about them, however. I’m just happy to have neighbors that we can live with. No, this isn’t about the Jamaican family that used to live across from us either, who would have loud wailing chants at midnight during full moons (and once on Friday the 13th). This is a story about a relatively normal neighbor across the way.

There was a bird. An insomniac bird. Possibly an insomniac bird with turrets. This bird, for God-only-knows-why would wake up about 9 pm and sing incessantly until about 4am, at which point all the other birds would wake up. Oddly, however, all the other birds combined managed to not be as loud as this one bird. Seriously, we hear big rigs and trains going by our house that this bird drowned out.

Several times we considered killing it. Sometimes we considered asking the landlord to rip out its favorite tree. One night, our sort-of-normal neighbor was out having a smoke just as we came home. We did the fake half-smile-just-in-case-he-notices-us-and-we-have-to-be-polite thing. But he didn’t notice us. Instead, he sauntered over to the tree and stared at it for a moment. And then suddenly shook the hell out of that tree! We, of course, started laughing and got out of the van.

Not-so-normal-neighbor sees us, shakes his head, and says “Bloody bird. I shut him up before and he’s already back at it! I may have to shoot him.” (sounded a lot funnier with his accent and body language).

I just had an awesome, yet strange day today.

First, a co-worker quit. He’s one of those jerk-on-the-outside-teddy-bear-on-the-inside types (and no bringing up the fact that I hate teddy bears!). Since I knew he was quitting as soon as he had a good job lined up, and I know that he’s the one that steals my Pepperidge Farms Milano double chocolate cookies (I know because he brazenly steals and eats them IN FRONT OF ME), I prepared and bought a second package of Milanos and hid them in one of my drawers under a pile of old grocery bags.

So, this after noon he tells me that today was his last day working there, and I jump up and grab the bag out of the drawer and hand them to him. He gives me the “what’s the crazy lady doing?” look until I explain that I’ve been holding onto them until I knew he was going and they’re a parting gift. Would you believe that this big, mean, Sicilian pirate from Philly comes over and hugs me before he left? Awwwww.

So, after work I hit the grocery store. End up striking up a conversation with the two people behind the deli counter. THEN I end up somehow crossing paths with the same couple over and over and over… And yes, I know that that’s common. What’s not common is that the other person/people turn out to be friendly and joke about it with you. So, I’m getting near the end of the store, the couple passes me again and then suddenly stop and grin at me. The wife looks at me and says “Well, we have to go home now, so have a good evening!”. *lol* There was a bit more banter involving weekends, Christmas, New Years, etc, and then they were on their way.

So I’m already late finishing up the groceries and get in line. Next thing you know, I end up chatting to the cashier. We end up so deep in conversation that actually walked with me to the door still talking! I kid you not! In fact, she started to go back to her station several times, and then come back to tell me something else. *lol* All in all, groceries took about 45 minutes longer than usual, but I had a blast!

So, today I shipped out a few items from late payers on eBay (look to the left to see some of my auctions).

Now, any time that I can ship out during normal post office hours is a good thing, since the local multi-shipping place charges a hefty surcharge for the convenience of staying open past normal work hours. *gasp* Open when real people aren’t at work? Who’da thunk?

Anyway. The closest post office is a small counter in the back of a gift shop in the shopping center of a “rich people” golf course rental community. It’s mostly retirees, and so even when there’s a line, there’s generally plenty of patience and often even friendliness, which is a pleasant change from other post offices.

So imagine my shock when I arrived to find myself 7th in line! At first I thought I had merely stumbled into the only rush hour of the month, until I heard the conversation up at the counter.

“But she no need the stamp. She just need envelope and stamp. Give me refund!”

“I can’t do that, we don’t refund postage. Besides, it’s two months old.”

This was repeated for about 10 minutes, while I, and one other woman stifled our giggles, and the rest waited patiently. This was occasionally interspersed with “I can’t argue with you all day, there are customers waiting to be served.” and “I am customer too! She no need this stamp…”

After that, two people got out of line, and several minutes later than that, one woman from the line finally went up, tapped the woman on the shoulder and said “She’s not going to change her mind- you might as well just go to the downtown post office and ask for your refund there”. Then she asked how much the stamp was for- you could tell that she was intending to just give the woman the money until the complainer told her it was over $16.

It took 15-20 minutes until the combination of the woman from the line, and a guy from the pharmacy finally convinced her that the refund could not be given there, and that if she wanted a refund she’d have to take it up with the main PO in the area.

Perhaps you just had to be there, but I wanted to document this so that I can use it in one of my novels.