A Close Call at the Post Office

Today I went to the post office to mail Valentine's Day parcels to my two grown daughters. Yesterday I had some fun putting together the gift boxes. My wife had bought the cards, but I got to go to the gift shops and find some cute and interesting knickknacks to go along with them. I also got a box and some packing material. I found another box of the right size, some packing tape and some of those styrofoam "peanuts" that had been sitting in a plastic trash bag out in the garage since we moved into the house ten years ago.

This all didn't feel like work; it was a labor of love. I enjoyed wrapping, bagging and addressing everything while I put dinner in the oven and watched the news and the president's press conference. I smiled to myself imagining their reactions when they get the packages and open each item. The intensity changes from when they are rambunctious little ones and you're in your twenties but not the satisfaction. My wife was at her district's board of education meeting so it was just me at home until about 9:00. Anyhow, I had everything packed and in the car ready to go for when I left for work this morning. All I needed was the postage and to send them off.

So after work I drove south on Mooney, the main commercial artery of town, past the Visalia Mall and turned right to get into the post office on Beech Street. The main entrance was boarded up with plywood. Oh, that's right, I remembered reading in the local paper about the 77-year-old woman who drove her car through the exterior and interior sets of glass doors and aluminum framing right into the service line. "No window service until further notice at this location" read a sign on the auxiliary entrance. You can still check your post office box or drop a letter in a slot there, but that's about it.

Well, I should have thought of that. So now, do I go to the main station downtown or the satellite one on Akers Street? I figured downtown would be too crowded on the lunch hour and headed out to Akers Street.

The line was long there but the company was nice. I got in line behind an older guy with an Alaska hat on and we struck up a conversation. He'd retired from up there and is 75 now. He'd also come from the Beech Street post office. We talked a little about the damage at the other location. We did the usual speculating about how the woman must have thought she was hitting the brake as she pressed the accelerator. He said, "I hope I have the good sense to recognize when I can't safely drive any more."

I pointed out one postal service employee working at one window who normally works at Beech Street. The lady behind us in line pointed out that he was setting up his register there the morning the lady drove into the lobby. Fortunately it was fifteen minutes before opening. A little later and she would probably have plowed through a waiting line of customers. As it was, he had just turned back from the counter when her car came crashing through. She went all the way up to the counter, damaging it and smashing his computer. If he'd stayed there a few seconds later he might have been seriously hurt.

The woman in line said the driver had actually been confused and thought the glass wall was an opening she was supposed to drive into. When the police got there she wasn't sure what had happened or how she got into an accident. Kind of makes me grateful to have gotten though another day. You never know what could happen to you on any given day. Or from moment to moment, for that matter. It also makes me wonder if there isn't something we ought to be doing to make sure people are fit to be driving.

Oh well, the main thing is I can already imagine the smiles on my girls' faces when they get their little care packages from Mom and Dad. It was a good day.