Tax Day 2018

The wind blew as I exited the car and saw the snowflakes in the air. One snowflake blew up my nose, a side effect of having a nose with wide nostrils. April was supposed to have showers and not snowflakes. I scurried into the post office attempting to say warm. As I pushed the glass door into the post office, I was preparing my mind for a line. There was a line of: two people that was good for Tax Day. In my right hand, I clutched my two envelopes to mail out with a post mark. Unfortunately, I had to pay this year for both state  and federal taxes. I’m still upset about it.

There was a gentleman a few steps in front of  me, blue sweater, gray pants, and black shoes. He had salt and pepper hair, he held three envelopes in his right hand as he stood in the middle of the line with his back bent over and his butt sticking out. He was moving the letters from one hand to another. Since I was unsure if he was doing a magic trick or trying to send letters I walked behind him.

I asked him, “Are you in line?”

He replied, “No, I’m just about to throw this out,” He shifted the letters to his left hand, removed a rubber band from the stack of letters, and threw the rubber band out of his right hand and missed the trash can in the corner.

There was a young lady in the corner stacking a package in front of rubber band man. I hoped she would move slow so I could get out of the Post Office as fast as possible. Another lady just finished her business at the counter and left the room.

Rubber band man gave his letters to the post office lady. From my past visits, to this post office I had never seen her before. She had that brown, orange, and blonde color, glasses, navy blue sweater with a light blue shirt the buttons were buttoned all the way to the top.

Rubber band man bantered and asked,“Did do the postage correct?” he passed the stack of letters to the woman. I saw the green confirmation receipt slips on the letters.

“Yeah, let me check” she said and started pushing buttons on the computer. She quickly moved the letters from the stack and onto the scale. One by one from stack to scale and then back into a new stack.

“Yes, it does seem. You did the first ones correctly. Oh, this one will be a little more postage,” she said. It was the last letter.

Rubber band man reached into his back pants pocket with his left hand moved the wallet to his right and brought out a crisp one dollar bill.

“Ok, I’m happy I checked these letters are important…” he said and his words trailed off into a flurry of mumbles for about thirty seconds. I’m not good with listening to mumbles so I did not strain to hear what he had to say. I started a day dream about a fast-food. By the time, I started to gather details for my daydream he was done ranting and quickly left the room with his copy of the green confirmation receipt slips in his hands.

“Who’s next?” she asked.

“Hi, how are you?” I said,

“Busy day. What can I help you with?”

“I just need these two letters stamped with a post mark.” I said and handed over the two letters to be sent one to New York State and one to the Internal Revenue Services.

“That’s it! You’re the easiest customer all day! Can you send some more this way. How about this? Go get five friends and make them be as easy as a customer as you are.”

“I will try!” I said and smiled. I grabbed my gloves and walked towards the door and hoped all the snow melted.