Adventure at the post office

At lunch today I went to the local post office here in East Los Angeles...

• There were many, many people in there getting passports. Most of them were teenagers.
• I've never seen anybody selling socks and various household items from a shopping cart in front of the post office before.
• The older, cranky woman in line in front of me, who dealt with the Asian lady I eventually got, was very funny. She kept making fun of the way the postal lady spoke (which was actually quite clear), and even said at one point, in her awesome thick ELA accent, "Me and you don't communicate, do we." (I wish I could fake that accent. It's totally cool.)
• They were out of the flat rate Priority Mail boxes. Another clerk gave me an empty box that previously held some sort of postal supplies, which was nice of her. I had brought some bubble wrap with me, so I wrapped the piccolo up in all of that (it looked like a very fat box of See's Candy). The box had some empty areas, though, and I wanted to fill that space with popcorn or newspaper. The post office had neither. Not even for sale.
• I went outside and found EIGHT different newspaper machines, but they were all empty (one was for free porn or something; that would've been interesting packing material, esp. since the guy who bought the piccolo got it for his young daughter), so I went to my car, expecting to find a magazine or a newspaper... except I cleaned out my usually dirty car of crap yesterday.
• I ended up using a bunch of Google maps that were floating around under the passenger seat, some empty plastic bags, and a paper J. Crew bag I've had in my car for years (I usually use it for my dry cleaning). Pretty much cussing the whole time (yes, I know I said I cleaned my car: I meant I cleaned it of reading material).
• Because there was no parking at this post office, I was parked about a half a block away, which isn't a big deal, except that it's unseasonably warm in Los Angeles, and I wore a sweater today because I am willing it to get cooler with my winter clothes (dammit, when do I get to wear my new winter coat? Will we ever have a winter? Is this why that $400 coat was so cheap at Macy's?). It's November and 84 degrees outside, and that's just wrong.
• I went back to the post office, and expected them, because they were the ones who didn't have the right (free) supplies, to charge me for the flat rate box, but no: clearly I was dreaming. I had to pay $3 more than I charged the guy I was shipping to (and did he have to live clear all the way across the county? Really. There are high school piccolo players in LA County, aren't they?), which made me kind of mad. Not hopping mad, no. Just kind of mad. But the Asian lady, who smiled all through the cranky woman's teasing, could've cared less. At this point I had been in and out of the post office for the past 45 minutes... I just wanted to go.
• If not for the beautiful and cheering smells emanating from the panaderia next door, I would've been a lot more grumpy.

Whatever. It's mailed. We are once again a one piccolo household. All is right in the world.