Of Post Office Queues & Fizzy Freebies
Tuesday, the 4th of January, 2005 - 26 to 11pm
Current Song ~ "Ma Na'avu" by David & Gila's Band.
Another day, another attempt to convince myself that I do not need a cuddly toy elk.
Bison, possibly, but not elk.
Once again, I am reminded that I should not be allowed to browse the websites of purveyors of cute things without supervision.
So far my deeply ingrained sense of priorities has usually prevailed (seldom do I forget that I have a music collection to support), but how long can it be before the adorable fuzzy ruminants start piling up...?
But let us go back to an earlier part of the day, before such issues had so much as flitted across my mind, when I met my friend Kay (previously seen in the epic Kristenssey) in Charing Cross after becoming part of one of the country's longest post office queues.
I was planning to get a parcel sent before heading into London, but my father scorned that idea and suggested that I nipped into the post office that's right near Charing Cross Station.
The post office in question is a very long, narrow building - imagine, if you will, about three small post offices tacked together in a long line, with some twenty cashier spaces (most of them sans cashier, naturally) spread all of the way down one wall.
When I got there, the queue stretched right the way to the back of the post office and had started to double back.
To phrase my reaction as mildly as possible, I was rather glad that Kay had informed me that her train was going to be rather delayed.
Luckily I am, as a former devotee of the Hard Rock Cafe (back in days of yore before it floated serenely away on the Styx, cheerfully tossing its attractive qualities overboard as it went) and a lifelong member of the British public (who will form orderly queues at the least provocation), a hardened veteran of queuing.
It is never easy to be a stranger in a strange post office with naught but the display of mind-bendingly cheap-for-a-reason DVDs (four martial arts films that nobody's ever heard of on one disc for �2.99, that kind of milarky) for company, but eventually I made it to a cashier and found them to be pleasant and efficient.
This was a novel experience, and one that just about made up for that which preceeded it.
I arrived back at the station feeling curiously bereft without my parcel (which I'd tried and failed to send twice and had become rather used to carrying around) but successful in my mission to deliver it into the care of the Royal Mail and in plenty of time to meet Kay.
We went off and had lunch at my beloved not-particularly-local, and then wandered about for a while - notably in Covent Garden, where we had a look in Monsoon and I concluded that even with 50% off, I couldn't afford anything. Which will, to look on the bright side, make later winnings of essentially brand new Monsoon garments on eBay all the sweeter...
On our return to Charing Cross we discovered that some enthusiastic people from Coca-Cola had a vast quantity of coke tins that they were giving away to anyone who felt like accepting one.
I am possibly the last person on Earth who should be having coca-cola (having as I do an allergy to aspartame, a dislike of carbonated drinks up to and including champagne, and caffeine levels that are insane enough with just the tea), but I cannot resist things that are free and not entirely abhorrant, and am now the proud owner of a complimentary can of diet coke that I plan to either share or drink very, very slowly...
Dear me, I wasn't entirely planning to focus so heavily on the mundane and the inconsequential. In my defense I can only say that attempting to wring an entry out of a chat with a friend that can't actually be quoted from (poor memory, confidentiality issues, element of making no real sense out of context...) never makes for much in the way of a finished product.
Still, before I think of some other trivial thing to ramble about, I had best be off - not least because I am (for the third day running) eagerly awaiting a CD that should arrive tomorrow, and feel that a decent night's sleep before resuming the Vigil of the Online Shopper would probably be a good idea.
Au revoir, folks!
Lily
