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Dave and I were in Portland last weekend, and we did our best to efficiently tackle all our various errands while we were in town. Rather than do everything on the weekend, we wisely decided to wait until Monday, thinking there would be fewer people out being nutjobs with the holidays approaching.

We did have to go to the post office and we were right about the nuttiness. On Monday morning, after rush hour, but before lunch, it was merely a crush of wall-to-wall people, not an outright stampede with people getting smooshed under a seething mass of holiday shippers.

Still, Dave looked at me and said “Maybe wait and do this later?” I do hate waiting in crazy lines, (unless there is beer at the end) but  I was resolute. We had a post office box to close and I didn’t want to put off doing it. I’d rather just deal with the 15 or 20 minutes of waiting in line, than have this task still hanging over me head for days or weeks. Gah.

So we waited. It was chaos. There was no telling where lines began or ended. People were hoisting giant packages over their heads, there was bumping and jostling, but pleasantly, no pepper spray or fist fights. The post office staff were in full gear. Every window was open and the line moved amazingly fast. It was a mere ten minutes before it was our turn.

We needed to forward our business mail from our PO box to Astoria. I filled out a form and handed over the keys to our post office box. This was not as common a transaction, so it took an extra minute or two for the clerk to make sure we had the right documents and signatures. We got a little refund. We got our mail forwarded and wrapped up. We were on our way.

Now, remember I said the place was packed? There were probably 50 or 60 people lined up in close quarters, with a few dozen more people milling about for various reasons. The whole place was solidly jammed full of people.

As we walked away from the counter, I heard the clerk say “Ma’am? Ma’am?” And because we had rounded a corner and he couldn’t see us, he then said “Dorkface!” to get our attention. “Dorkface! Dorkface!” In front of all those people.

I hurried back to the counter. “Did you just call me a dorkface?”

The guy chuckled. “I didn’t know what else to say, I just said what was on the forms.”

“I know, I know, I asked for it.” I told him. “That’s our greatest business asset, is being able to call each other dorkface.”

He just needed another signature on the form showing received the cash refund. I signed where he asked me to. Then he said,

“Happy holidays, dorkface.”