Post Office Mind Warp

I joined the dismal Post Office queue that snaked all the way from the counter, right through to the entrance. Though bitterly cold, the door had been left ajar permitting the increasingly popular queue to extend out onto the pavement. All this for a damned recorded delivery letter, I sighed. I stood there indignant, my hands tightly clamped to the pushchair and misery flooding my soul impervious to any sweet compliments imparted by kind individuals and intended for my sleeping child.

I’ll just wait patiently I thought and breathe in the clichés, the second generation Turks babbling in their native tongue, swarthy skinned and out of place in this cold country and the hooded youths perfecting looking dodgy.

Two very fashionable young men stood immediately in front of me. One was quite cute with his khaki inspired trousers slung almost indecently low around his pelvis and his designer sweater. His streaked blonde hair wafted over his baby blue eyes, yum I thought in my sad middle age, he and his companion chatted about theatre and film then the good looking one pressed his body intimately against his friend and laughed. Typical I thought, just my luck.

An elderly black man shifted from foot to foot his grey suit worn and tattered but still he was proud.

A very young girl with spidery black lashes and a pouting mouth, pressed her baby full belly forward and sighed loudly.

The whole of the neighborhood was represented in this queue of lives in waiting.

Then a raised voice distracted me from the ordinary. There she was - an old woman in elegant black high heels cradling tiny feet in thick grey tights. She wore a black coat cinched at the waist circa 1950's, which probably coincided with the last time she received a compliment. Her white hair skirted out at the base of her neck in a girlish manner and her thick black glasses announced her personality to the rest of the world.


Her mouth barely moved when she spoke yet her jaw worked overtime, her accent seemed to straddle Hungary via Morningside Edinburgh. She was clutching 4-passport size photos of herself and fury gushed forth.

"I want a refund.” she demanded shaking the photos in front of the post office workers face.

'What's wrong with them?" asked the bemused Asian clerk.

"I need a new bus pass and these photos can not be used."

"Why not?"

"Look at them." she shouted.

'What’s wrong with them?"

"I need them for my bus pass." she persisted.

"Yes."

'Well they don't look anything like me."

He smothered a chuckle and all eyes in the queue were on the pair of them.

'Well they do, I can see it's you."

"No they don't, they are nothing like me."

Even from where I was standing it was obvious there was no one else they could be.

He shrugged,

" I say that’s you.”

“I won’t be able to travel on the bus with these, they won’t let me on.”

“Well what do you want me to do?" He smiled patronizingly, uniting his colleagues.

"I want a refund and I want you to tell me how to get one."

He tried to humour her.

"Well perhaps you could phone and complain."

"How? What phone? I haven't got a phone?"

"Over there." he gestured to a pay phone.

She shook her head vehemently.

'You do it, you make the call for me."

He shook his head, "I can't do that."

The old lady almost danced with frustration.

"But I need a bus pass."

The clerk picked up the photos and scrutinized them.

"These photographs definitely look like you."

She calmed down and took a deep breath.

"So you think they will be alright on my bus pass, the driver will recognize me?"

"Yes." he said.

She punched the counter with her fist.

"Well why didn't you say so" she barked, and then crumpled burying her head in her hands.
"Oh this is all so upsetting, just get me a bus pass."

I moved to the next free counter and rolled my eyes as the young female clerk giggled over the mini drama. But I felt profound sympathy for the old dear.

As I weighed my envelope, yet another manuscript of hope hurtling through London in a vain attempt at success, terror struck deep in my heart.

That'll be me one day I thought, Oh my God, that will be me.