Losing His Cookies

Once upon a time there was a woman who lived in Indiana and sold cheese.

Her parents lived far away and it was almost her father's birthday.

The chef

So knowing that her father loved gingerbread cookies, she had his grandson make a big delicious batch and she packed them very securely into a box with some other gifts and a card.

At 4 o'clock she left for the post office knowing that the parcels would not leave on their journey from the town until about 4:40.

Arriving at the post office at 4:10, she brought her empty cheese boxes that needed to be sent back to the cheese house.

Putting those on the counter first, she asked the postal clerk, whom we shall call Milton, to ship them the cheapest way possible, which was parcel post.

After the postage was placed on the last cheese box, Milton discovered that the machine which dispensed the postage labels had just run out of labels.

By now there were a couple of customers behind her.

Uncharacteristically, Milton, who was pushing 80 if he was a day, swore as he left the room to get labels.

Meanwhile, the daughter and her young friend who had helped her at the house that day waited patiently.

When Milton returned he was very agitated.
He tried over and over again to thread the roll of labels properly through the machine, making trips back and forth between the machine at his window and the one at the other station, the closed window.

But it was clear that he was unsure of how it worked.
In addition, his hands shook so violently that he simply could not place the tape where he thought it needed to go. 

It was now 4:25 and there were four people in line.

More time passed and although Milton had seemingly threaded the labels through, the machine refused to work for him.
So the daughter suggested that she could buy stamps, which she had wanted to do anyway as they just released a beautiful new series, and then he could just tell her the postage and she would simply apply the necessary number of stamps.

(Plus she thought that covering her father's birthday box in botanical 'love' stamps would be fun.)

Milton was greatly relieved and said that would be helpful under the circumstances.

The big doors in the back of the post office opened and another postal worker started loading the carts with outgoing parcels into a truck.

Unfortunately, when Milton pulled out the book that held stamps he was unable to find the ones she wanted.

There were now six people in line behind the daughter and she said any stamps would do.

He handed her a 20-count book of brown liberty bell stamps and ran her credit card.

The big doors closed and the truck with the outgoing parcels drove away.

It was now 4:40.

When Milton tried to weigh the birthday box, the computer system would not allow him to proceed since the label machine had been opened and not reloaded properly nor closed.

He tried other options, to no avail.

Stress and frustration having set in ages before, Milton said he would have to move to the next window and see if he could weigh the birthday box on the machine there.

However, when he tried it would not allow him to log in because he apparently had not logged out of the other window's system.

After numerous trips between the stations he was finally able to get into the second system by slamming the cash drawer a few times.

Relief washed over him and he processed the order in only moments declaring, "That will be $15, parcel post. Your credit card, please?"

Sadly for the daughter, Milton had forgotten that she was going to use the stamps.

More sadly for the father, Milton had forgotten to ask how she wanted to send the box, which was first class, not parcel post.

So the daughter stammered a bit and handed him her card, asking if perhaps--since the stamps were not to be used after all-- she could return them.
And even more sadly for the daughter, the ugly brown bell stamps could not be returned because, as Milton explained, "I'm sorry, but all sales are final."

The last 'Cry Baby'

She thought it over and decided not to ask Milton to correct these mistakes as the line was now actually out the double doors, and they had been trying to mail one box for nearly 45 minutes.

In addition, while she and her young friend had divine resources to help them endure the ordeal with grace, it was fairly clear that Milton did not (although he did use the Lord's name strongly at least once, so she could be mistaken).

In short, she was most concerned that any further dealings might do him in, and if they did not, the other customers in line just might.

So the moral of this story is:

"Life's a ----- and then you…." 

WAIT! That’s not it.

It is:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Dear Dad, I’m really hoping you get your cookies by the weekend, but it could be the week after that. I think this is his best batch ever.
Love you!  :/