Of Dogs, Mail, and Frosted-Hair Ladies

You know what I discovered today? The post office is one of the most, if not the most, friendliest place in the world. At least around here. Since I am currently surviving financially on the money I get from re-selling my overpriced library science books online, I get to spend a lot of time there.

Today, the woman in front of me there, dressed in head to toe red for some reason, had her two dogs tied to the bench out front while she was doing whatever she was doing in the post office and one of them was going a little nutty with the barking and the jumping and the general anxiety that comes with being a dog separated from its favorite red lady on earth while tied to an iron bench. It’s tough stuff. Her other dog? Just chillin’. Very Snoopp, that one.

Anyway, the barking is not quiet while the post office is super quiet (and hot) so of course everyone notices and she’s all, “Yup, that’s my dog.” And then she proceeds to tell this super-long story to everybody and nobody all at once. Now, I was across the room at this point (the beginning) of the story and she either said that she had rescued the dog the day it was supposed to be euthanized OR the dog is being euthanized tonight. Originally, I really thought she had said it was being put to sleep tonight and I was more than a little horrified thinking this lady was announcing to everyone in the post office that she was offing her dog in a matter of hours. But, once I had finished addressing my envelope at the useless counter that is never open and I moved with my stuff to the actually useful line, I could more blatantly eavesdrop on her conversation and I think I cleared that up. Although, I’m not sure it actually qualifies as eavesdropping as she was talking to everyone in else in line. Just because I hadn’t been in line in the beginning didn’t mean I wasn’t supposed to be listening, right? I don’t know. I was confused and not really all that interested because I kind of thought she may be a horrible person what with the euthanasia-bragging and all, so I just listened and didn’t make direct eye contact with her. Luckily, the absurdly tall man behind me in line kept asking me envelope questions and borrowing my pen so I didn’t have to jump all the way into the dog conversation.

ANYWAY, to finish up this totally not interesting story, the red lady rambled on and on for like 10 minutes (not that long, but long given the subject matter at hand) about how the dog likes people but needs to bark at them first and once she barks at you (or at other dogs, she was hard to follow and again, the tall guy and the pen borrowing distracted me) and snaps at you, but doesn’t bite, then she’ll be your friend. And then there was a really long explanation of why no one could ever dognap her. Good to know, I guess. Totally discouraged my plan to rescue the dog from a possibly imminent put down. (Not really, where would I have put it? It really was very barky and besides, my parents fucking hate dogs.)

But the point of this pointless story is how everyone in the post office joined in with this lady and was so super nice (except for me obviously, but in my defense, I thought she maybe was evil) and chimed in with dog stories and dog anxiety stories and were very smilely and lovely and gave the woman much props for rescuing the dog (at least I think she did. And there is still the possibility that she rescued it, AND it was being euthanized tonight. Would that have been rude of me to ask? Probably.) That was so unexpected, the nice smilely stuff. Especially because I live in like the snottiest part of DC where everyone is old and mean and rich and not given to talking with strangers.

But this nice stuff has happened almost every time I have gone to the post office lately. One person in line says something or comments on something they see (usually stamps and that’s even less interesting than the dog story you just sat through) and then everyone else joins in, and this always makes me wonder things similar to the following: Where am I? We’re being nice to each other now? When did this start? Do I have to join in? Because I generally do not like it when people talk to me. Granted, most people who talk to me who I don’t already know are fucking nuts and I shouldn’t talk to them because if they kill me then who’s the asshole now, you know? But is this a general niceness taking over or is it post office-exclusive?

I suspect it’s only a mail-oriented phenomenon because right after the post office I went to the grocery store and I was in line then stepped out for like a second to get a bottle of water out of the cooler that was at the end of my check-out aisle to sustain me for my walk home when this frosted-hair lady totally snaked my place in line, restoring my faith in the fact that most people in my neighborhood? They are not so much with the nicey nice.