Woman with the "heavy" 30 lbs. Child (True Story)

 

This story is about an incident that I witnessed at my local post office this past week. Due to the mailing deadline set by the post office, there was a long line of customers. Everyone was being patient and respectful except for the woman with the 30 lbs. child.

She was ahead of me and I noticed two things. That she had a super-large shopping bag with gifts; and she was carrying a child (not a baby).

I did not give her further notice until I heard her raised voice. I looked over to the counter where she was. She had two packages wrapped in Christmas paper tied with red ribbon. No boxes and no brown wrapping paper within sight. She was shipping both out of the country.

There were labels to fill out and the postal employee politely asked her to move over to the empty window so that other people could be helped while the woman was filling out the labels. When she was done, she could come back to the window.

Scene 1: The woman said using a loud voice that she was being kicked out of line and she did not find that acceptable. At this point, she mentioned the 30 lbs. child and how heavy he was. She refused to move.

Scene 2: The postal employee again asked her to move to the empty window so that she could help others in line. The woman would not budge and started complaining of poor service.

Scene 3: The postal employee decided not to push it further and started the steps required for packages going out of the country even though the labels had not yet been filled out. As the postal employee was weighing the first package the woman turned the package around on the scale to get the address. Again, the woman mentioned the 30 lb. child she was holding and how heavy he was.  

Scene 4: The postal employee said she would no longer help her until what she needed from the woman was completed.

Scene 5: The woman said something to the postal employee that I did not hear. At this point, I heard the postal employee say, “You cannot talk to me like that.”

Scene 6: At this point things got a little crazy and the postal employee told her to leave the building and come back when she had the packages completely ready for shipping.

Scene 7: The woman said that no one in line was complaining. That was true, but I bet they all were in their minds, because I was having an entire conversation with that woman holding the “heavy” 30 lbs. child.

Scene 8: This was when I stepped up and said, “If I were arguing with the postal employee about the rules and holding you up, I bet you would have told me to move along.”

Scene 9: She looked at me like I was dirt on her shoes and said, “Stay out of this.” I gave her my best death stare that I learned from my own mother. She was not impressed.

Scene 10: The woman said to the postal employee, “Were you raised by wolves?” several times.

Scene 11: The woman said she was going to report her and asked for the postal employee’s name which she gave without hesitation.

Scene 12: Finally, after much muttering and head shaking, the woman left the building with her packages and her very heavy 30 lbs. child.

My Part 1: I got to the counter and asked the postal employee if she was okay. She said she was, but I could tell that she was shaken up about what had just happened.

My Part 2: We then proceeded to handle the mailing of my properly boxed package that was going to Massachusetts which was a lot less complicated than mailing internationally.

My Part 3: I do not know why I did this. When I left, I stopped at the entryway of the post office and I looked out at the parked cars. The woman was sitting in her car and not backing up. Was she cooling off? Or was she waiting for me?

My Part 4: So…I stayed put and waited. And waited… until she finally drove off.

My Part 5: As she drove off, I noticed that she was driving an expensive car. To my way of thinking, that explained one of the reasons she acted “so privileged” throughout the scene in the post office. I would not be surprised if throwing fits was her way of getting whatever she wanted.

My Part 6: Two days later (there was a snowstorm in between) I went back to the post office with a stack of Christmas cards and a small gift bag for the very harassed postal employee. I had included my contact information in case she needed a witness to the incident if the woman followed through with her threat to file a report.

It’s a tense time of year, especially this year. Choose to take a breath and realize everyone is just trying to do a good job. Don’t take your frustrations out on others.

Until the next time...