By Renae Brabham 

I believe those damn aisle arrows that used to be on grocery store floors have thrown these wanna-be traffic cops into a tizzy.

Don helped me carry heavy boxes into the post office this week. As we got in line, a lady behind us with an enviable resting bitch face and eye roll muttered something that didn’t sound like a greeting. I looked behind her and realized the actual end of the line went on a good ways behind us. We moved to the back of the pack without taking my earrings off.

Moments later a new lady in front of us felt she needed to dictate to another lady where she should stand, and the other lady responded that she was just fine right where she was. I believe those damn aisle arrows that used to be on grocery store floors have thrown these wanna-be traffic cops into a tizzy.

As we moved through the line at an acceptable holiday pace, two kinds of people clearly revealed themselves in that room: the patient and impatient. I could hear sighs and mutterings if someone took longer than a minute with the postal clerk and then — it was my turn. A jolly postal elf greeted me with a ginormous Christmas Santa hat on, and while he was scanning my packages, I fixated on it. It had bulbs and looked like it may be a little uncomfortable.

I knew the minute it left my mouth I was click bait. “Does that hat light up?” I asked. With a grin wider than a cheshire cat he said, “Well, yes it does.”

He reached up and pulled a bell down hanging near his ear and it made the hat move up and down on his head. The bulbs lit up, elf ears popped out from the side, and it began singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas” in more verses than I knew existed. I scanned the room behind me, full of sneers and jeers as I was clearly the bane of their existence at this point. I’ve always been the one to mash a button on a toy in the store to see what it does and then fumble to find the cut-off switch quickly. This time I couldn’t get behind the plexiglass to make it stop and instead just suffered through the imaginary projectiles being thrown at my back.

The song eventually ended and the postal clerk wished me a Merry Christmas with a wink and a nod for the next person to come to the counter. A little reminder, we don’t have to tell everyone how we feel about them. Sometimes we can just go along with it and be better for it.