When you decide to make a living by selling stuff online, you learn pretty early on that one of the most significant relationships in your life is your relationship with the post office. You have to go there three or four times a week, so you need everything to run smoothly. You want your post office to be in reasonably short walking distance, especially if you live in the city. You want the lines to be short and the air conditioning to work. You want convenient opening hours. And the people working there... well, once you get there, you want to be greeted with a smile - a real smile, not a fake postofficey one. After all, you are putting your entire business in their hands. You want them to know your name and remember your PO box number (trust me, that comes in handy more often than you'd think). You discover you sleep better at night knowing that your packages weren't just dumped into a sack by "some stranger" - not that all postal workers have evil intentions or anything like that (just a select few) - but you want your stuff to be handled by the sweet clerk with the bright red hair, or the one who always gives you your paper clips back (the ones attaching the registered mail forms to the... well, this is boring... there are paper clips), or by the one who always makes silly jokes and you kind of secretly like her, ever since you noticed she has almost the exact same name as one of your favorite TV characters. What are the odds?

A couple of weeks ago - I think it was a Friday - I decided to make my trip to the post office early in the morning (well, early morning for most people, very late night for me) to avoid the afternoon heat. When I get there everything seems normal, and as usual, the first thing I do is go check my PO box. New glass, maybe? No. To my horror, I find a note in there. "We hereby inform you that branch so-and-so is going to be merged with branch such-and-such, starting next week. Your PO box will be transfered to the new branch. You will be able to keep the same number. You can collect your new keys at the new branch next week."
But... but... I don't want new keys. I don't want a new box. I DON'T WANT A NEW POST OFFICE!

I take the note to paper-clip-lady and slam it on the counter. "What is THIS supposed to mean?"
"We're being merged with a different branch. Your box will be transferred there." She smiles politely.
"You're DUMPING me?! How COULD you? After all we've BEEN THROUGH together?!"
"We're not dumping you", she says. "We're just moving a bit further down the street. Just a little change. Everything else will stay the same."
"But I don't want anything to change. I like our little routine. It works for me. And... this new place... it's so far away." I feel so betrayed.
"No, it's just a couple of minutes away from here", she says. "Don't worry. You won't even know the difference."
The new address doesn't sound like a couple of minutes away, but since I am geographically challenged and I haven't slept all night anyway, I decide to take her word for it. "But WHY? Why do things have to be this way? How can this be happening to us?"
"Efficiency", she replies. "The decision was made a while ago."
"Well, no one asked me", I shake my head sadly as I start handing her my packages.
"Do you want the paper clips back?"
"Whatever. You can keep them. I don't care. They're just paper clips."

A few days later, it is time to go check out the new-and-improved merged post office. As I suspected, it is not a couple of minutes away - more like, add twenty minutes to my usual walk (which, in the hot, hot, hot Tel Aviv sun, might as well be twenty hours). I start calculating in my head as I'm walking. Twenty minutes in each direction, that's forty minutes, three times a week, that's TWO HOURS of my time. This makes no sense. I'm a beadmaker, not a full-time postofficegoer. When I finally arrive, panting and sweating, I find a thousand or so other confused people there, not-so-efficiently standing on line. "I don't get this", one woman is yelling at anyone who'll listen, "why was my box transfered here? There are two other branches that are closer to where I live." I have to admit, she has a point. But I can count three.

When my turn finally comes, half an hour later (more gloomy calculations), I explain to the new clerk that this is not going to work for me, because I send a LOT of mail, and this new branch is just too far away. Obviously, there is nothing she can do about it.
"But WHAT is the purpose of all of this?" I just have to ask, even though I know there is no good answer. "Things were working so smoothly before."
"Efficiency", she answers like a robot.
"Do you see any efficiency going on here?" I glance at the long line behind me. "Well. If this is the way it's going to be, then I will just have to rent a new PO box in a different post office. Do you think you're the only post office in the world? I can find one that's closer to where I live. One that understands me."
"But then you won't be able to keep the same number", she points out.
"But that's not FAIR", I growl. "Well, I don't care. I'll get a new one then. I don't need you anymore. I can get along just fine without you. My new post office and I are going to be very happy together."
"Oh, by the way..."
"WHAT?"
"Your new keys." She hands me a pair of red mailbox keys that look just like my old ones.
"I don't want your keys! I'm moving out! That's right, I am breaking up with YOU! You're never going to see me again."
I take the keys anyway, just in case.

It doesn't take long for me to choose a new post office and rent a new box. The first time I go there, everything seems okay. Just a normal, average post office, with clerks and stamps and scales and stuff. What more does a girl need?
But the second time I go, I discover I really, really miss my old post office. Not the stupid efficient merged one, the nice, original one with the short lines and the friendly clerks. In this one, the line is too long again... maybe another result of the merger or something. Ah, the wonders of efficiency. When my turn comes, I divide my packages into two neat stacks on the counter, the same way they used to like it at the old place. "These are to the United States and Canada, and the rest are to Europe," I explain to the clerk. "Oh, and these two over here are to Australia."
She stares at me with a blank look in her eyes. "How many packages are there altogether?"
"Ummm... I don't know. I didn't count them." Paper-clip-lady would never ask a thing like that.
"Okay." She puts one package on the scale, and then starts counting the rest of them.
"Ummm... they're not all the same weight, by the way", I tell her. The last thing I need is for my packages to start returning to me due to inappropriate postage.
She lifts up two or three of them, one by one, IN HER HAND. "Yes, they are", she replies.
"No. They're not."
"They're all fifty grams."
"No, really, they're not. Some are lighter, some are heavier."
"No. They're all the same weight."
"They are my packages. I know what's inside them. They are not the same weight."
After this goes on for a while, she finally notices that there is a scale there, right next to her - one of those modern devices designed specifically for answering this type of age-old question! Thankfully, she decides to use it. "Oh, you're right", she says. "They are not the same."
"Ummm... yeah."

The different weights, combined with the different destinations, appear to be too much for her to handle, especially while having a chat with a different clerk. As paper clips and registered mail forms go flying everywhere, I find myself missing paper-clip-lady like never before. "I'm totally lost here", new clerk mutters.
I feel like shaking her and yelling, "FOCUS, woman! It's just a dozen or so packages! You work at the post office! You must have encountered this kind of thing before!" But, since I want to start off my new relationship on the right foot, I try to smile sympathetically and ask if there is anything I can do to help. I know that there isn't, but I try my best to be nice. "I'm totally lost here", she says again.

Speaking of feet... while the clerk is trying to find herself between my packages, I have nothing better to do than some fascinating post-office-people-watching. I notice one guy standing on line. Before I can say I'm-certainly-no-fashionista-or-anything-but-why-would-anyone-in-their-right-mind-be-wearing-baby-blue-crocs-with-tube-socks-and-shorts, I realize who it is. It's PsychoRoomie! HE goes here? Yikes!
PsychoRoomie, a guy I shared an apartment with a long, long time ago, is - as opposed to my adorable little angels of death from last week - the kind of past you want to leave in the past. The more distant, the better. He's the kind of past that comes back to haunt you in your worst nightmares, quoting Seinfeld ("HellOOOOOoooo!") and giggling while doing everything in his power to make your life a living hell. He's not the guy you want to run into at your new post office. I immediately look away and start staring in the other direction. Hey, maybe this IS one of my worst nightmares? Maybe it's all just a bad dream? O paper-clip-lady, where art thou?

"I'm totally lost here", new clerk says again. But eventually, she figures out what she is doing - or at least, I really, really hope she does. My packages get thrown into a sack (hopefully, the right one), PsychoRoomie and his baby blue crocs are nowhere in sight, and things are beginning to look like they might turn out okay. That's the thing with new relationships - they are weird and unfamiliar at first. You have to work on them. It takes time, tolerance and patience.
A place with really good sandwiches that I discover on the way home makes things seem a little better.

Hi, my name is Sarah and I just wrote an entire post about the post office.

Whoa, I think I just made enough money to buy my own post office.
*in a state of total shock*