Monthly Archives: August 2012

This is what happens when I go to the post office at lunch…

August 29, 2012Random stuff, Stuff only I think is funnyBecca

One of the 43,000 things I do not understand is why postal workers feel compelled to educate you on the inner workings of the priority mail weight calculations or the exact regulations of what qualifies for media mail. Does this happen to everyone or do I simply look exceptionally interested in the mail? I once had a job where I spent hours/days/weeks at the post office and everyday it seemed like I was lectured to about bulk mailing weights and whatnot. And then, of course, there was the time where I was practically forced to join a crooked pyramid scheme (but that’s another post for another day).

Today I went to the post office and was schooled on how California has a different way of calculating first class mail and how I could pay less if I wanted to mail something heavier. I told her I didn’t have anything else that needed to go but at that moment I had a brief insight into her life outside of the USPS, sitting down eating dinner with her husband as she chirps excitedly, “today we got an internal memo that California is going to start calculating their first class mail differently – we had to re-calibrate all of the scales…!” as her husbands eyes glaze over and he reaches for the remote and she decides that perhaps she should impart this wisdom on someone actually AT the post office. It’s probably a lot like being a nuclear physicist, who else can you talk to but other nuclear physicists?

In other news, I stopped at Wawa to get lunch and decided on a fruit & cheese platter with hummus on the side, apparently my brain was already on happy hour mode at 11:45am.

You would think there would be some intermediate step between Sex & the City and Roseanne

August 29, 2012Examples of great parenting, Life LessonsBecca

There was a time in my life when I was urban chic and I wore heals to work and I bought wine in bottles and I had a professional highlight my hair. I lived in the city and tried to channel my inner Carrie Bradshaw. I swore that when I had kids I would teach them French and not let them watch TV and feed them only wholesome organic food. Unfortunately I have noticed a marked decline in recent years of my chic-ness and last night I believe I reached an all time low.

I drove home from work in my subcompact car, took off my 2 year old beat up flats and poured myself a large glass of wine out of the box in the refrigerator. I parked Lucy in front of the TV and went into the kitchen to make HAMBURGER HELPER for dinner. Hamburger helper! that is neither organic nor wholesome nor even made with real cheese. And what’s worse is that when grocery shopping this week I opted for the cheaper meat – you know the 80/20 instead of the 90/10. I served the Hamburger Helper with white bread and butter (I hang my head in shame).

I don’t know when my inner Carrie Bradshaw was snuffed out and replaced with an alcoholic Rosanne Conner, but when I was upstairs later, a little drunk and trimming my hair with cuticle scissors I thought its high time for a new outfit and a night on the town.

Yet another reason we need to move to a better school district

August 26, 2012Random stuff, Things that confuse meBecca

I have spent a life time answering stupid questions, perhaps it’s because of my career path and all the years I worked in customer service, but now that I am a librarian it’s gotten 100 times worse. People come to me to ask me all manner or bizarre and often times droll questions (i.e. “what’s a synapsis?” “what’s a thumb drive for?”) and it makes me wonder what they are teaching in high school these days.

But, last week I got one that made me do that double look “Whaaa?” face. A student was in the library buying hair extensions on-line when she turns to me and asks, “How come they are still making iPhones if that guy is dead?”

Hm. What?

So, I saved the retention report I was working on and took a moment to explain how Apple is a huge corporation that still employs many people who are working on manufacturing and developing the iPhone. I tell her that it wasnt just Steve Jobs sitting in his dining room constructing each phone by hand.

A look of pure shock & revelation came across her face and says “Oh, I never thought of that before I thought it was just him doing it.”

It makes me want to revive my love of calling random strangers and look up the number to the Philadelphia Public School system and call them and ask them where they went wrong.