A Need For Something

I walked into the post office today. This is what I observed...

No line. At all. Not a single customer in the entire room. Two postal service workers conversing to my left behind the counter and one gentleman peering above the counter in the middle of the room. I quickened my gate approaching his station. Sliding a non-assuming smile across my face, as if to say, "Thanks for not walking away when you saw me coming," I am inches away from the chest-level desk when the man abruptly tells me to get a ticket.

I stop in my tracks and look around the empty room. Even the two fellow workers seem to quiet in anticipation of what may happen next.

He repeated himself, "Get a numbered ticket."

As in...grab a ticket from the ticket station in the front of the room near the entrance...even though no other being is in the room...even though it's clear that I am to be serviced next...even though it's likely the most ridiculous request I've gotten all day.

Except for the fact that, in fact, it isn't the most ridiculous request I've received all day. I've cleaned up after a sick puppy. A really, really sick poopy little puppy. I've been on the phone with insurance companies and doctor's offices and dentists and other medical providers asking me for codes and premiums and maximum out of pocket policies because I have recently moved and need a new medical support network. I've been educated on HMO, PPO, private, self and otherwise insured. I spent time with a governmental agency automated telephone service after the online service refused to acknowledge my data. I was on the recieving end of a most unfortuate business conference call. I spilled juice. I cleaned with bleach. I forgot to buy the eggs I went to the grocery store for. And much to my regular disappointment, I checked my retirement savings plan account balance just after I paid off my credit card and filled up with a tank of gas.

So, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

I'll take your ticket.