Disaster at the Post Office

It's been one of those horrid weeks were everything just piles on top of everything. Because I had to take Colby to the vet on Friday, I hadn't been able to get enough done at work, so I had to come in on Saturday (not a normal work day for me), and because I had to come on Saturday, I also had to fit in a visit to the post office and grocery shopping. The post office was before work since it would close by the time I left.

I only had one package to mail, something I'd promised to mail by that day on swapadvd.com. I also had potentially a friend's birthday that night and nothing purchased for them. And there, at the post office, like a lifeline from a friendly rescue officer, was a gift card display.

And it had the restaurant gift card where she likes to go, and it was a "set your own price" gift card. Absolutely perfect.

So I tried to buy it while mailing my package.

And the system tells the poor clerk only after it runs my credit card that I can't use a credit card to buy the gift card (I always have before, although never at the post office, and not at Walgreens but there's a big sign on the gift card display at Walgreens letting you know you can't use a credit card but must have debit or cash). There was no sign on the post office display. I checked.

And then the stupid system won't let her cancel the gift card purchase, get this, because it already ran the credit card. It won't use the credit card for the payment, but it won't let you remove the item it won't let you buy.

I don't have cash. It makes me feel vulnerable and with four anxiety disorders (or is it five now? I've lost track) I don't need to do something that makes me more anxious.

And I don't have a debit card. I don't like them. I don't like my money going "poof" out of my bank account before I have a chance to verify the purchase. If I go home and my credit card receipt is wrong, I can go back and have it fixed and even if the store won't fix it, the credit card company will. The bank for a debit card? No so much.

There we were. The frustrated clerk. The line growing ever longer behind me. The confused and frustrated manager who came to help the clerk. The line growing ever longer. Time ticking away where I needed to be at work doing work things. And the other clerk, yanking out a cash bill from her own wallet and saying, exasperation written all through her voice and body at the idiot who doesn't use cash or debit, "I'll buy it for my son."

I said "thank you." I apologized repeatedly to the people in front of me, the clerks and the manager. I didn't apologize to the people behind me in line because there were too damn many of them and that many people terrify me--what if one of them is the unreasonable, angry, violent sort?

I didn't want to say thank you. I wanted to say, "You should be able to cancel a transaction that won't go through, and if you don't know how to do it, get flippin' IT on the phone and make them work on a saturday just like the rest of us."

I didn't want to be forced to be grateful to a woman who only did it to get me out of there in the first place.

But I did, because that's social anxiety. Never stand up for yourself or what you believe in because there's always going to be someone more powerful than you, louder, angrier, more violent, more something, who will make you regret it.

So when I went grocery shopping after work to a place that would have taken my credit card for a gift card purchase and would have had that gift card, I totally forgot about it, because it was so late in the day.

And because it was so late in the day, and the birthday girl wasn't even going to be there until 10:30 so I'd just be leaving the card and gift and not actually seeing her anyway, and I was exhausted and frustrated and just so tired, I didn't even go to the whole shindig, just stayed home and slept through supper and then had to get up and eat supper anyway because of the stupid eating disorder where I can't skip meals anymore. No matter how tired I am.

The whole thing feels like such a colossal waste. I have to keep reminding myself that the whole reason I went to the post office in the first place, to mail my package, was actually successful and I did actually do what I set out to do, even though it took longer than it should.