This morning I drove into town to mail a few things at the post office. Today is December 17 so I expected there would be a line of people sending Christmas/Hanukkah gifts and/or picking up packages sent to them from afar.
Sure enough, there were five people ahead of me in line, and soon there were seven or eight people behind me, no one familiar to me, something of a surprise given how small our town, but there you are.
While I waited I entertained myself by watching the people ahead of me in line and by occasionally glancing back at the people behind me. And ere long I divided those in line into three categories: people at peace with waiting, people not at peace with waiting, and people vacillating between being at peace and not being at peace. I included myself in the vacillating category.
The woman in front of me was president of those not at peace, her jittery dervish-like dance of despair something out of a slapstick comedy. And the man in front of the president was vice-president of those not at peace. He would tilt his head back, look up at the ceiling, emit a little groan, and roll his eyes; and he did this so many times I worried he might hurt himself.
By contrast, the woman in front of the vice-president was, I believe, either a saint or really well medicated, so beatific was her smile, while the woman in front of her was so deep into whatever she was seeing on the screen of her phone she might have been a statue so little did she move.
The woman directly behind me seemed to be on the verge of sleep, a sweet smile playing on her lips, and behind her was a large man holding a large package, his face expressionless, his category not guessable.
When I completed my business at the counter and came out of the little service room, each of the ten people waiting in line – eight women and two men – looked at me as I went by, and one of the women gave me a searching look I understood to mean, “How did things go for you in there?”
And I almost answered out loud, “It was the usual love fest.”
But I worried such jollity would annoy those not at peace and so kept the divine truth to myself.
fin
Listen to Todd’s delightful Christmas/Hanukkah short story The Dreidel in Rudolph’s Manger or stream/download to share with your friends and family.