My Ammerrikka: Going Postal

There’s this post office in southern California that has long lines and two clerks, both women, one Hispanic, one white.

The Hispanic lady is most probably Mexican with roots in the area longer than most of the transplants. She has an edge of course like most postal workers that makes you think she can throw the evil eye at will, or snap at you at any moment; and if you really bug her, she also can reroute your package via the slow train to Kazakhstan. She would prefer not to do this so try not to bug her. Be nice. Underneath all that implied going postal threat however, she really seems rather nice. Down to earth. Competent, motherly, warm, overweight, middle aged, wise, indigenous. Thick, slightly wavy black hair in a pony tail, no makeup. No pretense, warm smile, nobody’s fool. If she didn’t hold the sovereign power of the U.S. mail over me, I might even like her. I was hoping to get her when my turn came, but that’s not how it worked out. I got the other lady instead.

Oh, the vagaries of the bureaucracy! Life is a crap shoot, is it not? Have you not had certain unfortunate, bad luck-of-the-draw experiences at your own supermarket or bank? Yes, as it turned out, I got the lady who thinks she is Veronica Lake- sultry, gamin screen legend of the 1940’s who played opposite Joel McCrea in Sullivan’s Travels, Preston Sturges' madcap, classic social satire of Ammerrikka during the height of the depression. Lake's slightly cocker spaniel hair became iconic for its "peek-a-boo" style: shoulder length blond tresses covering one eye and part of the face, a distinct come-hither look. Except that the postal Veronica Lake is not a gamin but elderly- early sixties- and the tresses though carefully coiffed are pure iron gray. She is thin like the star of old, wears lots of make up though neatly applied, rimless eyeglasses and sounds a bit like Billie Burke in The Wizard of Oz. 

Retro Hollywood splendor, a steamy vapor that seeps through the San Andreus fault and envelops all the surrounding towns. 

Already I’m missing my gum cracking, not so cuddly black postal gal back in the Bronx- sassy, no bullshit- but my package will get there, and if it doesn’t, it won’t be her fault.

But back to the postal Veronica Lake, who considers the people on the line to constitute her rightful audience. It’s the first week of May and she addresses her audience: Mother’s Day already! Anyone know any good Mother’s Day jokes? Ha Ha. And she winks mischievously like a starlet of the forties while continuing to stamp parcels. The only thing that comes to mind in the way of jokes is that back where I come from, “mother” is half a word, but I desist. She likes to wink a lot in that knowing, playful way and yet I do not feel she is happy, or particularly nice.

When my turn comes she comments on the fact that I am sending a package to New York. Are you from New York? Just visiting? Tourist? Disney? Family? Wanna live here? Wanna go back? Too much crazy California stuff? Ha Hah. And she winks. The questions are fired off in succession one after another with no pausing for answers, not that I want to. What I really want is for her to shut up. I feel she is angry though she is smiling. Yet because I wish the package to reach its destination before the end of the following summer, I politely inquire if she is from California.

Bingo! Oh yes, four generations! We go waaay back! She’s ebullient, smug. She winks as she says this. As I make my way toward the door, hoping not to have incurred too much further wrath, she yells after me: Mayflower too!

Mayflower! Well I’ll be gosh darned. . . .

Turns out I asked the right question after all. She was able to do her schtick, pull rank, on me, clueless Noo Yawk child of immigrants that I am, and the indigenous Latina too, who has to work next to this person ‘till time immemorial, and whom the gods decreed would not be my postal clerk on that particular day.

Preston Sturges where are you when we need you??? You never would have ended it like this.

No Joy, Some Joy, Joy

No joy.
A military term meaning missing your target.
Found this out at the airport while tuning into a nearby conversation. Clearly this couple was in the early dating stage, striking casually elegant poses as they went.
This was his offering, his nugget of male wisdom, though he did not appear a military type, but more of a scruffy hipster, probably a hiker. She was blonde and hikerish too.

I was still recovering from my encounter with security- more horrible than ever and making me feel very insecure; baggage thrown askew, out of sight, heart racing with lost/stolen luggage anxiety as they patted, swatted and x-rayed one and all, shoeless-  the huddled masses some of whom will no doubt be missing their flights.
No joy there.

Needless to say I am an aisle person. The window guy arrived and suggested tentatively, might we not both have been assigned the same seat? But in the same breath, almost apologetically, he also says he will be happy to take the window and hopes they don't make him move. He flashes his ticket at me, which at quick glance appears to have my seat number, but he seems happy with the window arrangement; nonetheless he repeats he hopes they don't make him move. Maybe they double booked he says, but he does not look all that worried. He does worry about his gardener back in LA ,where we are headed, wonders if the plants were watered. He tells me he saw a great Broadway show last night and stayed up too late. He's a talker this guy, gay, somewhat rotund in the middle, bermuda shorts reminiscent of the fifties, playful. I may be forced to reveal my entire life story since that is how I usually react to talkers but am not in the mood this day. In truth, he's downright jolly.
Worried about moving yet not worried. Can't quite figure this out.

Sure enough, two ultra competent early thirties-somethings show up and then totally and competently tell Mr. Jolly that his seat just may indeed be one of theirs. He mumbles to me that he is sure he will have to move. Why him? Moments later the flight attendant arrives and whisks away all four of our boarding passes. I do not wish to move.

She returns a few agonizing minutes later but now there is some joy, at least, for me, as it is Mr. Jolly who will be evicted- apparently he belongs in another seat farther back, and not at all in a far, far better place. He leaves without a fuss. His "ticket"- the one he flashed- was for another flight, an earlier flight on another day long done and gone, but of course he knew that. Joy! I didn't have to move. How did he have the balls to try this, I wonder. A risk taker!

The jolly ticket swindler soon was replaced by the seat's rightful owner, a young and well-behaved alcoholic with truly impeccable manners. Two and a half hours into the flight it's only 11:30 a.m. and he's already onto his third Bloody Mary. Mid to late thirties, suit minus the jacket, white shirt and laptop, he surreptitiously sips away to placidity while trying to concentrate on a movie. Once or twice he politely excuses himself and wriggles out of the seat without even nudging my bad toe as he so politely makes his way to the bathroom. He's much too well behaved, but he's managed to attain a quiet if brief joy, at least on flights. 

In the meanwhile I've decided to watch someone else's movie on a screen in front of me and across the aisle- without the sound. The only actor I recognize is Robert De Niro, and he looks really old. Soundlessly the rest of the cast- mainly the women- seem to deliver a series of lengthy pouts, inter-dispersed with back of the head shots. The acting is insufferably bad. When the credits come on, the title appears:

Joy