First off I want to let everyone know(that means you anonymous!) that I have added a poll to my blog. Please take the poll so I can get to know all of you (you, anonymous) better. With this knowledge I’ll be able to better target my blog to your specific personality type. Thanks!
It was a major event today at the Berkeley Post Office. I went to my PO box and got one of those yellow tags that says you have to wait in the long line to get your mail. It actually happens quite often because the po boxes in Berkeley are quite small.
An interesting tidbit is the Post Office is very close to where the picture of the World Famous Wind Powered Car was taken.
Anyway, the yellow card indicated I actually got something. That in itself was quite cool since I usually go there and the box is totally empty. When it’s empty I can see all the way through to the work area where the letter sorters are, so I always put my face right up to the little square so they can see me and I say “Hi!”. I think it helps to be nice to your post office employee.
Which apparently, no one told the tall black woman with the bad wig. There we were. I pulled tag number 84. I looked around and noticed there were many people in front of me. Great I thought. I’m parked in a 10 minute zone and about to get a ticket from 1 branch of our government because another branch of our government is soooo slooooow! That didn’t seem right so I made a mental note to myself to write my congressman.
So of course I waited to hear what number they called next to see how many people were in front of me. The number was 68.. 16 people in front of me.
So after about 15 minutes it’s getting close to my number. I can feel it. The excitement is building and then in walks ??? let’s call her Maisha. She’s the tall black woman with the bad wig I referred to earlier.
So Maisha sashays in from the street with her popcorn in hand and walks right past everyone and says to the sweet black woman behind the counter that she had passed her up and provided her number as evidence.
So have you ever seen the cartoon with Witch Hazel. You know how she’s a sweet little old lady and then she will all of a sudden transform and become evil. Well the sweet black woman went through something like that. She didn’t spin around or anything, but all of a sudden when she opened her mouth she had fangs. “You’re going to have to pull another number!” she told her. “I want a supervisor!” was Maisha’s retort as she grabbed another bite of popcorn. “I’ll get you a supervisor, stand over there!”.
But Maisha was not going to be told where to stand so she walked well past the designated standing point. She found some reading material on the wall. It was really the post office hours on a sign, but she read it for about 3 minutes.
Then she started back. Dadump, dadump, dadump. People were starting to huddle in the corners and move towards the wall.
“Where’s the supervisor????”
“They’re at lunch!”
“What is your name???”
“Mary.”
And that was it. Maisha left still chewing on her popcorn and her wig still looking as bad as it did when she came in. Mary called my number next and I said. “Hi Mary, how are you today?” At that Mary’s fangs retracted and she started laughing. I told her I would support her if she had any trouble and gave her my box number. And of course I had to know what number Maisha had.
Mary laughed. “It was 58.”
“58???” And then we both were laughing. the number 58 was simply too funny and at that point Mary and I had bonded. She went and got my package and was still laughing when she came back. She told me to have a great day and I wished her the same. 2 souls connected. I walked out of the post office singing the song ‘Ebony and Ivory’ and thought of how together, Mary and I could thwart the evil Maisha’s of the world.
I’ll keep her around for the next time a ‘Maisha’ takes me to small claims court. Imagine how impressed the judge will be by a white person and black person coming together against the evils of the world. So then if the ‘Maisha’ exploits her children again by making them sit in the courtroom right next to her, the scales will be a little more balanced. And if her 1 year old devil child tries to stare me down again, I’ll just defer to Mary as I think Mary can handle her just fine.
Thanks, don’t forget to take my poll, so I can better serve you!