The SoCal Years 15: A Christmas Postal
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The Riveting Adventures of A Filipina-American Actor-Girl in the Southern California Jungle
The SoCal Years hubs comprise a series of narrative essays from the late 1990s, pre-9/11, immediately after grad school when, knowing she would run screaming back to the East Coast in the end, a young-ish Pinay New Yorker, armed with her new Drama MFA, decided nonetheless to dip her toes into the Hollywood swamp.
Frosty Southern California mornings. Sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it? I've been using my squeegee to scrape ice from my car windows. I'm in the twilight zone.
Why should I get frost and numbing cold for Christmas, and not snow?
Eight beanie babies in two packages. One headed to Massachusetts and into the waiting arms of five little girls and a 14-year-old godson. The other bound for Michigan and two young cousins. It's 7:30 am at the near-empty post office location on Paseo de Valencia in Laguna Hills.
You'd think a post office would be full to busting the week preceding Christmas, wouldn't you? Empty except for one lady—middle-aged, package-blond, nondescript except for a faint accent I perceive to be British. Pleasant enough. She's filling the stamp machine.
"What do you need, dear? Three dollars and four dollars? Well, I suggest you use two books of $2 worth of postcard stamps for the bigger package. Like to buy a separate book of first-class Christmas stamps too? That'll be $13.40, dear.
"Accent? Well, I'm from London. Oh, but I've been in the States for many decades. Don't worry, I'll look up that zip code for you. There, just put your packages on that ledge over there and I'll take care of it, you bet. Merry Christmas!"
And I am happily on my way, as, I imagine, are my packages. I get on the 405, singing of jingling bells, envision the little munchkins chortling with glee as they open their treasure-box of hard-to-find, pellet-engorged, avalanche-catalyzing little fake animals, all purchased at retail, thank you very much.
Two days later, late in the evening, one of the packages reappears in my mailbox with a neon-orange sticker on it announcing that "due to heightened security you must hand this package directly to a postal employee."
It is late in the day. Tomorrow is 24 hours to Christmas Eve. The package will never get to its destination on time. And what of the second package? Will that also be coming back? I am devastated and furious.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
The next morning I burst into the post office at 7:30 am and bang on the locked grey door. A faint voice yelling, "We're still closed, come back later." I bang away, "I want to speak to your supervisor, RIGHT NOW!"
A pause, and some laughter from behind the grey door, still infuriatingly closed up and uninviting. A couple of early customers in the lobby throw me furtive glances. Am I armed? Will I turn on them next?
A head peeks out. Another middle-aged woman (it's a trend, it seems, at the US Postal Service), eyes guarded behind fisheye-lensed spectacles. Asks what's wrong.
"I BROUGHT THIS EARLY MONDAY MORNING THE LADY SAID SHE WOULD TAKE CARE OF IT NOW YOU'VE SENT IT BACK TO ME AND ITS TOO LATE IT WON'T GET THERE IN TIME I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU PEOPLE DID THAT—!"
"I'll get you a supervisor." And she disappears behind the grey door.
Man in blue apron appears, knit-browed. She's told him I'm deranged, I can tell. "Can I help you?"
"I BROUGHT THIS EARLY MONDAY LADY FROM LONDON NOW IT WON'T GET THERE IN TIME GET THIS TO MY PARENT'S HOUSE TOMORROW WHERE'S THE OTHER PACKAGE I TRUSTED YOU PEOPLE—!"
"Let me talk to the supervisor." The grey door closes.
My eyes have begun to leak a bit. I'd put time I didn't have into carefully choosing those beanies—I'd driven all the way to L.A., that epitome of seasonal traffic hell, two or three times. Picked them out with my own hands. I wanted my little munchkins to get them on Christmas morning and to hike their poor old aunt (or cousin) up a notch on their measuring sticks. I wanted to be a hero, dammit.
I am going postal on the Post Office.
The blue apron reappears. "Okay, ma'am. I apologize. We'll send your package express mail, just let me get some information from you."
In between not taking offense at being called MA'AM (geez Louise) and denying my own embarrassment about my ballistic behavior, my heart flies upwards and I start to breathe normally again. The little ones will have their beanies, by gum. I might be their hero in a small way this Holiday Season, and a more marvelous thing I cannot fathom.
I stay to watch him put the package into the express mail envelope. I watch him write up the airbill. I marvel at how a few panicked tears (and some ball-breaking) rights wrongs. If I'd been meek and sweet, would this package be arriving on Christmas, paid for by the US Postal Service's corporate account?
• • • • • • • • • • • •
I imagine postal employees live on edge these days, never knowing who'll pull a firearm out of their sleeve. Maybe they all think it could've been me.
Instead they breathe a sigh of relief as I get on the 405 singing of decking halls and herald angels and how you better watch out and not cry. 'Cause Santa Claus is coming to town, you know, and he's making a list...
So have yourselves a Merry Little Christmas... ◊
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