SCENE: United States Post Office, Downtown Sebring, Florida
WHEN: Today just before noon
PARTICIPANTS: Me at Counter, Old Lady in Line, Old Man at Counter, Older Female Postal Employee 1 (Nadine), Male 30-something Postal Employee 2 (Helping old man), Female Millennial Postal Employee (doing nothing).
<and action...>
Myself and other customers are at the post office. It's Highlands County so, of course, only the employees are wearing masks. I'm explaining my issue, that is my package which is reportedly "on-hold" to Nadine who is nice enough but she immediately looks at her computer screen and tells me "it's out on the truck for delivery." I tell her the text status on it says it's "on-hold at customer's request." I tell her I made no such request. Tracking shows me that this package was originally delivered to a sorting facility in Illinois and was "out for delivery" from there just two days ago. Then I got a message saying it was routed to "another sorting facility." This run-around is similar to another package that tracking had it as "Delivered to Opening Location" and marked as done. That was at a USPS facility in Fort Myers. But a day later, it showed up unexplained in my mailbox.
Nadine looks at the text on my phone and remarks "Oh, that's a long number!" (my tracking number) and proceeds to snag a slip of paper and a pen to write it down. (Couldn't she type the number into her computer?) She then unsmilingly hobbles to "the back" as she's calls to me "Let me check...."
I glance again at the name plate at the window. Yep, Nadine. Not Audrey.
As I'm waiting, I notice the old man having a similar issue with medication being delivered to an address he has no association to and the employee helping him is having trouble looking it up.
Suddenly, it all became so very, very clear.
"It's all messed up!" I literally yell out to the customers next to me. "Stuff is being sent everywhere! It's all messed up!"
The little old lady in line near me nods and says "That's the issue I'm having too, but I don't think it's these folk's fault..."
"Oh no, I'm sure it isn't. They don't know about it. They wouldn't let them know about it. It's all over! It's the whole system everywhere! It's a cyber attack or something!" I animatedly declare for everyone in the room to hear.
The old lady perks up, leans into me and confides in a secretive whisper "I think it's the Chinese."
Nadine returns ten minutes later, all other customers and employees gone. It's just me and the worthless Millennial girl who is still side-eyeing me from beneath her mask after my little tirade. Nadine plops an unrelated package on the counter. It's clearly marked from Walmart and likely was earmarked for today's delivery.
"This isn't the package in question though." I calmly inform her.
"Ooh!" she exclaims as she looks at her computer screen. You know, the computer screen she never entered info on. "But it is mine." Oh, she breathes a sigh of relief. (How often do they plop incorrect packages in front of people?) Back, with scribbled tracking number in hand, to the great depths of "the back," goes Nadine yet again.
"Nope, it's out for delivery." she confidently states as she returns minutes later.
"But the package was marked as "Hold at Post Office at Customer's Request." I remind her.
"Yep, well it's out for delivery according to the SCAM."
"The SCAM?"
"No, SCAN."
"Oh, I thought you said SCAM. How come it's being delivered yet it says to Hold at the Post Office at Customer's Request? Though I never requested it to be held in the first place, I never took it off the hold either."
Nadine smiles and nods, clearly confused. Or, maybe she's covering shit up. Maybe she knows what's REALLY going on. Was the SCAM comment a Freudian slip? Does she have insight into "the bigger picture?" And if so, how is she able to know that? By looking at her computer screen?
I look her in the eye and summoning my best impersonation of the exasperated expression of a bi-polar person in a manic episode: "So not SCAM! Even though you said that. Okay, SCAN. I gotcha."
I hammily make big-eyed faces up at the multiple security cameras around the room. "You have to keep up the appearance, after all! I know the pressure you're under!" my voice rings out not just for her to hear but for the one's "watching."
I snatch my box off the counter and make a sorrowful, bemused expression to what are now all three employees behind the Plexiglass partition.
"I understand. I understand." And as I'm walking out of the building, I bid adieu with my parting wail: "God Bless America!! I miss it already."
<end scene>