As I have mentioned before Shepherd’s Bush Green Post
Office is the worst place on earth, the doorway between earth and Hades,
populated by the shadowy creatures that can only exist in this netherworld.
But I still keep going, partly for the entertainment value
and partly so I can live tweet my progress to the counter at #postofficequeuelive.
Follow me at @Herring1967 and you get all kinds of irritating services
including me RTing Richard Dawkins every time he RTs his own praise,
commentating on QPR home games based solely on the noise I can hear from the crowd
and of course my infamous March 8th “International Women’s Day”
service of letting idiots know that International
Men’s Day is on November 19th.
Since I have started live tweeting my long (sometimes
over 30 minute) waits at the post office the service has undoubtedly improved.
I was through in 5 minutes recently, which is Post Office terms is like being
shot out of a cannon. Has my tireless campaigning on this issue led to the
people of Shepherd’s Bush having to wait slightly less time to buy some stamps?
Don’t call me a hero. Even though I clearly am one. The new manager must take
some of the credit. She’s fighting hard to treat her customers better than
cattle on their way to slaughter (even if some of them don’t deserve that level
of respect).
This week I thought #postofficequeuelive was going to be
a bit dull. The queue was short. Everyone ahead of me appeared boring and sane.
Then a man arrived, shouting aggressively into his
phone, threatening someone who apparently owed him £50, but wasn’t going to pay
it back.
“It’s not good enough!” yelled the man, “I am going to
come over there and kill you.” He seemed serious, even if £50 seemed a trivial
sum for such punishment.
Plus the first rule of murdering someone is that you
don’t stand in a quiet post office queue shouting about your homicidal plans
(check the murderer’s handbook – page 1). I suspected that the person on the
other end of the line was saying, “Come on mate, it’s only £50. We both know
you’re not going to risk life imprisonment for that amount. Especially as
you’re already mentioned to me that you’re in a post office queue which means there
are dozens if not hundreds of witnesses. At least give make the threat
believable, like you’ll come round and giving me a Chinese burn unless I cough
up a tenner."
But the potential assassin kept up his OTT tough guy, “I’m
coming over right now!” It was obviously an empty threat. He was as at the back
of a post office queue and thus wouldn’t be free to murder anyone for a good
half an hour. The potential victim practically had time to get to France.
“What the fuck am I supposed to fucking do?” he
continued, “I know you haven’t lost it. You’ve spent it on drugs.” The drug addled
idiot on the other end of the line was shaken because then the man shouted,
“Police or no police. I. AM. FUCKING. COMING”. Though he stayed where he was,
because he’d already been queuing for four minutes and wasn’t going to lose his
place in the queue for fifty quid. I mean, he’d kill someone for that amount,
sure, but his post office queue place was priceless.
Luckily my wait was only 10 minutes, but I knew I had
a murderer standing right behind me for all that time. So just like any day at
Shepherd’s Bush Green Post Office
