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Marcie "Mom" Glanzer's Column
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
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Idiot Club
As many of you know, I work for the USPS as a mailcarrier. Six days a week I get up at 5:15AM, shower, eat and head over to Willow Lake where I sort and case the day's mail. While I and a couple of others are working, we visit, and I am always telling them about some stupid thing I did... occasionally they will contribute a blunder of their own, but usually I'm the only one who admits to stupid things. One day, the postmaster, Mike Korbel, decided we should have an "Idiot's Club" and he appointed me lifetime president. Whenever we hear of someone doing something assinine, we say "they should join our Idiot Club"...so I thought I'd tell you a few of the reasons that I am the undisputed president and maybe we could sign up a few new members. If you have a knack for doing dumb things, you may want to join.
A lot of the dumb things I do are related to my job. One particular event that comes to mind happened a couple of summers ago while road construction was underway on Highway 28, which I use to get between Willow Lake and Carpenter. On my way to work, the highway crews hadn't yet begun to go, so there were no pilot cars to wait for, but coming back with the mail was a long affair. I had to sit and wait 20 or 30 minutes for a pilot car, and time is money as we all know. So, I had the bright idea to turn and go north one mile on gravel and come into Carpenter from the north instead of the south. It made for an extra 2 miles, but save lots of time. And, in addition to this, I could deliver mail to 2 customers earlier than normal...I would drop it off on my way into town rather than on my way out. Brilliant! In order to do this I had to drive on the wrong side of the highway, but there is so little traffic around Carpenter that it wouldn't matter. The first day I did this, however, a local farmer, Kim Madsen, just happened to be heading towards me in his white pickup and made the motion of tipping a drink, like I was drunk or something. I ignored him, and the next day, same thing. Here he came down the road just as I was pulling up to his son's box on the wrong side of the highway. Again, the mocking "drunk" taunt...the third day I was hoping he wouldn't be anywhere around as I prepared to swerve into the wrong lane, but damn it, there comes that white pickup. This time I was going to play along with him and I swerved left and right all over the road and nearly hit him head on, when I discovered it was a total stranger in a similar looking pickup...I sure got a dirty look! IDIOT!
Another time, I had gotten to Carpenter and dropped off the mail for the town folks, and somehow left my post office keys on top of my car. I didn't realize my mistake until several miles later, and I sheepishly reported to Valerie Madsen (yes, Kim's wife) who is the postmaster, what I had done. It couldn't be kept quiet to save me the shame...no, everyone in town was looking for those keys which never did turn up. They probably rode on top of my car for a couple of miles and are in some ditch. Anyway, the whole town knew about this and rubbed it in at every turn. This led up to another idiotic turn of events. Since I didn't have my keys, I had to improvise on how I got into the post office in the morning. One particular day, I had Valerie open the door for me, then she left as she didn't have to be to work for quite some time. I brought the mail in then paused and considered how I was going to lock the doors behind me without a key. A brilliant plan hatched in my brain. I would lock the doors from the inside and work my way out through the front door instead of the back! Great idea! So, I locked the back door, then the office door, made my way through the office and pushed the lock button on that as I made my way into the lobby. I had just pulled the office door shut when it hit me....the lobby door is locked from both sides.. I couldn't get back into the post office and I couldn't get out of the lobby....my car was running outside, Val wouldn't be coming back to work for 45 minutes. What was I going to do? I peeked out a little side window and happened to see a guy I knew driving up towards the PO in his pickup..."please stop" I thought to myself. By God, he did...he was mailing a letter outside, so I hollered out the window, "Tim, can you help me?" He sauntered over with a chew in his mouth and studied the situation for a minute. "Are you locked in?" he asked ( I should have made him a member right then). "Yes, and I'll give you $5 to keep it quiet, but I need Val to come over and unlock the door." Tim didn't earn his $5 as everyone found out about me locking myself in the post office within 2 minutes. IDIOT!
One more thing I did, not work related, was really stupid. I was using the weed eater and had momentarily set it down so I could pick something up,when I stuck my hand right into the spinning line! Fortunately for me it was just idling, but when I brought my hand back I was expecting to see a bloody stump and jumped up and down, swearing and afraid to look. When I had finally summoned up the courage to glance down at the spewing blood, all I found were some welts...no blood, nothing gory to show everyone. I made the mistake of telling my co-workers so, once again, they proclaimed me Idiot of the month.
Now, I know that I can't be the only idiot out there. After all, I just read Ryan's daily log where he tried to electrocute himself several times, so it's not just me. I would like to hear some of your idiotic moments and see if you have what it takes to be a member of this elite club. Please log on to Ryan's discussion board and post your own blunders. There's no shame in admitting you're an idiot. (Unless there is, in which case I've just made a bigger idiot myself!)
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