Well I suppose some things are universal – the post office just doesn’t work well. I have found this to be true in every major city I have lived. Here in Jerusalem, I was to learn, the case was no different. Surly Israelis behind every counter, an incomprehensible overhead speaker system and of course, as is true in many waiting rooms these days, an intricate and over-engineered numbering system. I pulled A008 when I walked in. Naturally my first thought was “wow, I’m only 8th in line!” Not so. The screens had a variety of numbers, all either A, B, or C groupings. The number on the screen when I sat down was A982. So I had a ways to go.

Ten minutes later, it was A989.

Ten minutes after that, it was still A989. Who the hell knows what Mr. A989 was up to. He was tapping his foot, and the agent behind the desk was nowhere to be seen. My mind started to wander … the whole point of this A, B, and C grouping was so Israelis could be served more efficiently. When you enter the post office, you specify your purpose: A was for mailing packages, buying stamps and other merchandise. B was for money orders (both receiving and sent). C was for legal matters, like notarizing papers, and perhaps other things as well – C was a busy counter and people, for unknown reasons, came in bursts instead of one at a time. Perhaps the most puzzling part of this, was that the A, B, and C counters would change all the time. So if you went to buy stamps (group A), and when you were finished the clerk hit the “next” button, the overhead would announce an A, B or C ticket holder to come to the same clerk. Surely, the efficiency of an A/B/C system would be improved if the clerk then only had to know the answers to 1/3 of the questions? As it stood that day in the office, the clerks were all over the place, and as a result had to leave their desk to fetch things from the other side of the office.

Now another 10 minutes had passed, and Mr. A989 had finally left the building. Little Ms. A990 was now taking care of business. I still had a long way to go before A008 was called, and who knows how long I had to wait. 30 minutes in and I was nowhere closer to buying my stamp. I had to leave to meet Hunter and a friend, so I silently vowed to return the next day and buy my damned stamp.

The next day, I arrived and waited 55 minutes before my number was called -A046 this time. Today it was the same song and dance of A/B/Cs, with the C group coming in small bursts from time to time. Maybe once I can speak Hebrew I’ll solve that little mystery!

I approached the desk and asked for my stamp, along with a few others so I wouldn’t need to spend an hour of my day at the post office whenever I needed to mail a letter. The clerk handed me my stamp, and then, just because, critiqued my method of applying the stamp on the letter.

“No, that’s not right,” he said.

“Oh, does it go somewhere else?” I asked. I had affixed the stamp to the upper right corner of the letter. Maybe in Israel it was the upper left?

“No, it’s wrong. Give.”

I handed over my letter and partially affixed stamp. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I simply hadn’t put ALL of my body weight into the stamp repeatedly, as I saw the clerk doing in front of me. He handed the letter back to me.

“Can you mail it now?” I asked. Maybe I missed something – but usually after stamping a letter AT the post office AT a desk it was the clerk’s time to shine.

He took my letter back somewhat awkwardly and dropped it in an unmarked burlap sack. A047 was already edging me out of the way.