remote cards

Wednesday I get the email – next day delivery on that CD/DVD pack you ordered. And I wonder, how big is this thing? Will it fit through the box? What are the chances? Sometimes, a particularly shitty postman will leave parcels on the door step. Thursday and I’m watching the rain bouncing off the ground and planning who to curse first if I get home to find a soggy parcel on the doorstep. Fortunately, its been done properly. Its too big for the letter box, so they’ve left a card – we tried to deliver, you can pick up from parcel office. Parcel office is fine, its on my way to work anyway. The parcel office is open from 7am till 12 noon. Which leaves a pretty narrow window for someone working. But Friday comes, and I pass there about 7am ish most days. So I stop, grab the postcard and head round the back of the post office, weaving path, various gates. There are new signs up now, parcel office this way, go here, go there, do not cross this line – the van park, delivery entrance is on other side of the fence, they must get people crossing over all the time or something. On the bright red door, another sign, ring bell and enter. So I do, but it never seems to make a difference. The little entrance way, the glass windowed counter, the little office behind with pigeon holes stacked up, odd shaped parcels all over. There is a grey door, locked, with a glass panel, its got vertical stripes clear then white, so you can just see the movement of figures on the other side. But I wait. A woman passes the window on other side of office, catches sight of me, shouts be there in a minute. No worries, I smile, and wait. She takes the card, and like always, the parcel is never in that room, she has to go somewhere else to find it. I take it, thank her, and leave. On the way back out, a right here, a left there, a right here, and so on, there is an older man coming in, squat and balding, looking harried, clutching his own familiar postcard, I hold one of the intervening doors open for him and then exit. In front of the post office, another car has just parked behind me. A body builder type gets up, wide chest, big arms, tight t-shirt, short, short hair, and sure enough he too is clutching one of those postcards. Everyone hitting that 7am opening on their way to work, so I climb into my car, and go to work.

Labels: depot, glasgow, morning, parcel, pick up, post office