You’ve gone to the post office to mail eighteen boxes of various shapes and sizes to a friend in Belgium. When should you fill out the customs forms?

a. At home, before you come to the post office
b. Before getting in line
c. While waiting in line — the line usually moves pretty slowly, so you might as well kill two birds with one stone
d. Customs forms? Ohhhhh, right. Well, can I just fill them out now? Because there’s a line helixing out the front door and into traffic on 34th Street, the post office only has two clerks on duty, and I only have half a hand and this here light blue crayon to write with. “Move over”? But…but I only have half a hand! It’s really hard to hold the crayon! I need to spread out!

At the post office, the guy at the head of the line has eighteen boxes going to Belgium, half a hand, and a light blue crayon, and the clerk hasn’t asked him to step aside in order to let other, better-prepared customers step to the front and take care of their postal needs. What should you do?

a. Shrug and settle in for a long wait
b. Write a shopping list
c. Read the magazine you brought, because you’ve gone to a post office before in your life and therefore know better than to expect anything in the way of prompt, efficient service
d. Sigh repeatedly in the hopes that another person on line will notice and commiserate with you. Sigh louder. Mutter rhetorical questions like “what the hell is going on back there” and “how many coffee breaks do these people need, anyway” and “this is what our tax dollars pay for?” Refuse to accept that huffing and snorting like an Angus bull with Tourette’s isn’t going to do a damn bit of good. Repeat the phrase “this is absolutely unbee-leeeee-vable” even though, as a voting adult who does not wear Velcro-fastening sneakers or ride on a tiny bus to work, you should know by now that post offices always have lines, that the lines always move slowly, and that nobody else on the line is going to begin chanting “Attica! Attica!” in support of your position, because nobody cares, and also, you should really reconsider that home permanent, because it just doesn’t flatter your face. And did you know that you could just weigh that envelope on the postage scale without waiting in line, and mail it using stamps in a drawer at home? No? Well, you can. You can also buy a vibrator very discreetly from many catalogs and internet sites in this fine land of ours. You can also shut up.

Which of the following transactions can you conduct at the bank (circle all that apply)?

a. Cashing checks
b. Exchanging currency
c. Updating your account balance
d. Crabbing, moaning, muttering, bitching, drumming your fingernails, flipping your hair around, glaring angrily at other customers who have the gall to count their money before leaving the window, stage-whispering “it’s called ‘direct deposit,’ look into it” at senior citizens ahead of you in line, shifting pointedly from foot to foot, wondering aloud why everyone couldn’t just call the hotline to ask questions about their accounts, behaving like an understudy in a summer-stock production of Norma Rae, and then, after reaching the front of the line, not knowing your account number, not having the required endorsement signatures, and throwing the teller a bunch of attitude because how should you know your account number, for god’s sake — can’t they just look it up? They expect you to sign the check? What’s that about? You don’t have a deposit slip — do they expect you to look around the lobby and find one on your own? And wouldn’t that ficus tree in the corner look a lot better IN YOUR EAR?

It’s Saturday. You need groceries. You expect the store to be

a. fairly crowded — many people don’t have time to shop during the week
b. full of annoying people, but at least it’s air-conditioned
c. kind of a hassle, but hey, there’s an olive bar
d. closed to all other customers except you, because you have important shopping to do, and it’s really so tiresome when other people want to get by you in the aisles like they deserve to shop too or something, because they could have gone during the week, and no, you can’t “excuse” that lady who asked you nicely if you would mind moving your cart — you’d like to finish reading the ingredients on this package of frozen corn, thank you very much, and you don’t think it’s very funny when she points out that it contains corn, because you know that! You would like to know about preservatives! You would like to know about preparation! You have the right to stand there as long as you like, so if she doesn’t like it, she can call a cop, and by the way, you did not “ram” her cart, she’s totally exaggerating, you merely nosed it aside, those eggs must have broken before and you had nothing to do with that, and besides, you needed to get through and didn’t have time to wheel the other cart gently out of the way. And who goes out looking like that, anyway — with no make-up? It’s the grocery store! You can meet men at the grocery store!

What do you wear to the grocery store?

a. Whatever I wore to work
b. Whatever’s clean
c. Whatever
d. A pink mohair twin set over freshly-pressed capris, black lace-up espadrilles, a tennis bracelet, diamond solitaire earrings, and full make-up.

When the employee at the deli counter hands you the container of tuna salad you ordered, you say:

a. “Thanks.”
b. “Have a good day!”
c. “Yum, celery bits.”
d. “This smells kind of…fishy. Doesn’t that smell fishy to you? Smell that. Tell me if it smells fishy to you. It smells all fishy, right? Is it supposed to smell that fishy? What temperature do you keep your refrigerated cases at? You don’t know? Well, this smells rotten to me. It’s not ‘fine,’ it smells like fish, for heaven’s sake! Is your manager here? I’d like to see your manager, because you are selling rotten food in this store. Please get the manager right now. Honey, this smells fishy, right? Right? You know, these people could learn to speak English.”

When you buy egg salad, you try to get the kind without

a. Too many chives
b. Too much pepper
c. Too much mayonnaise
d. Too much egg yolk and egg white. I mean, what’s with all the egg? It’s a salad — helloooo? Do you want me to gain fifty pounds over here?

The customer ahead of you in the checkout line has an unusual food item in her groceries. You react by

a. wondering silently to yourself about the item
b. asking the customer about the item — what it tastes like, how she cooks with it, and so on
c. making a mental note to buy the item the next time you go shopping and try it for yourself
d. picking up the item, pulling a face like you just found a dead body in your clothes hamper, remarking “okay, gross” in a snotty-popular-girl-in-a-John-Hughes-movie tone of voice, dropping it back on the conveyor belt without regard to its welfare, and staring at the customer as though she had a particularly rubbery snot hanging out of her left nostril, because, I mean, feta cheese? Ewwwww! Oh, look, Woman’s Day!

If there isn’t any room for your groceries on the conveyor belt, you

a. wait for the customer ahead of you to move up a little, then get the little divider thingie and put your things on the conveyor belt as room becomes available
b. wait for the customer ahead of you to finish checking out, then use the entire conveyor belt
c. ask the customer ahead of you if she’d mind condensing her things so you can start unloading your cart
d. grunt out a little “uch” sound to let the customer ahead of you know that she’s slowing you down unconscionably, sweep her things forward and up into a messy pyramid with your forearm as best you can, and start whanging the heaviest of your groceries down on the belt to make your displeasure with her as plain as possible, and if she doesn’t get her loaf of rye out of the way of your 64-ounce bottle of detergent, well, she’s got nobody to blame but herself if she won’t make room for your twelve-packs of Diet Dr Pepper, and the average tomato is quite resilient so you really don’t see the fuss — I mean, you have to get out of here! The Mad About You rerun starts in ten minutes, and you can’t hang around here all day waiting for other people to run their errands! So a peach or two got squashed — they still taste the same! Let’s get a move on, people!

You have an inexplicable craving for a cinnamon bagel. The deli on the corner has a whole bin full of plain bagels and one cinnamon raisin bagel, but you don’t like raisins. You

a. buy a plain bagel and eat that — no big deal
b. buy a plain bagel, toast it up with butter, and sprinkle cinnamon on it yourself
c. buy the raisin bagel, pick out as many raisins as you can, and cope with the rest
d. hand the bagel to the woman at the register and tell her to pick the raisins out for you, act stymied by the possibility that she has about a thousand better things to do, demand to know what she expects you to do if you don’t like raisins, point out irritably that yeeeesssss, you saw the plain bagels, thank you, but you don’t want a plain bagel — you want a cinnamon bagel, and if the deli won’t provide a cinnamon bagel without raisins, you have every right to request the removal of the raisins, because if they didn’t want to pick the raisins out, they shouldn’t have put the raisins in the bagel in the first place, now, should they?

If you answered A, B, or C to the questions above, you may continue living among and socializing with other human beings. If you answered D to most of the questions above, please stuff it in a sock, tie a little knot at the end of the sock, light the sock on fire, jam it sideways up your nostril, move to the middle of nowhere, and shut up.

July 22, 2002

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