errata

Here are some things that I think need correcting:

• The scent they use to disinfect the bathrooms at work is that pungent fake green apple smell. I don't know. Perhaps I don't want to be thinking about the taste of Jolly Ranchers during the elimination rite. Unless, of course, I just ate a bag of them. Then I'd deserve the noxious combo.
  
  
• When a driver approaches a busy intersection with the intent to make a left turn and doesn't pull out into the intersection (in case the only opportunity to turn comes when the light turns yellow) I think the driver directly behind The Timid One should be able to ram them gently into the correct position. Otherwise, you end up sitting through the light cycle several times while Mr. Clueless waits for a sign from god or something while I am visualizing getting out of my car, marching over to their window and explaining to them, in my most flowery language, that city driving is not for pussies like them.
  
  
• I love Christmas. Not the shopping part. Not the god part. Just the festive, family, friends and food part. However, I have recently discovered that my allotment of holiday spirit is finite. I went to the Post Office this past Monday. Most of my shipping had been done the week before, and I just had few items left. It was 7 a.m. and I stood in line behind the blessed automatic postal machine.
  
  I fucking love the automatic postal machine. And I am fast. So the two people ahead of me get finished and I begin my speedy little screen input when a woman gets in line behind me with an assortment of large packages. She's just inside my personal space and her body language is screaming impatience. Oh, for fucksake, I think, you'd better hope the poor sap behind you has more patience than you do, bitch. It's here where I begin to realize that my holiday spirit could be drained before the day had even gotten started.
  
  I place my last item on the scale, a small gift for our host daughter and her family in Finland, and Nosy Pissypants says abruptly "You can't use the machine for International." I soon learn that she has never used the holy machine (which she doesn't deserve–the regular cattle line is already snaking outside the large post office area and that's where she belongs) and she's trying to tell me, High Priestess of Automatic Interfaces, how to use it. We are not amused. I turn to her and say, "That's funny, the screen says I CAN ship internationally." At which point I turn and press the clearly visible International button and began typing "Finland" on the keyboard...maybe a little slower than I'd been typing before her arrival.
  
  After I get my international stamp, I walk over to the big drop contraption and put in each regulation-sized box. On the last one, the barrel jams. I am so tempted to skip away. But I don't. I find a kindly but not confidence-inspiring postal employee and tell her that the box wasn't too big but it jammed anyway. The Procrastinating Know-It-All now standing in front the machine crabs loudly, "They didn't tell me the boxes have to fit in there!" "Well," I replied, "they do." And I felt my waning holiday spirit flutter back to life.