Righteous indignation

Today in the post, a letter I had sent to a friend was returned to me for insufficient funds. Said letter had spent so many weeks mouldering on a table before actually making it into an envelope and then to the post office, that its return was cause for great dismay. Bloody hell! I immediately fell into a rage at the stupidity of the employee at the post office who had sold me the wrong stamp and puffed myself with righteous anger. I was ready to be the hand of vindication, the sword of all that is just, I was ready to roar my indignation.

Of course, there is a back story. I do not fly into rages at the slightest provocation, although I will admit, I do tend to feel the casual slights, the vague injustices and the mild set-backs of life a little more severely than my more sanguine friends (What do you mean there is no strawberry sorbet! Oh my god, what am I going to do?!!).

But the back story is this: the guy at the post office is a jerk. He never smiles. He is grumpy all the time. He is never helpful. He never offers seasonal greetings or comments about the weather. His stoney-faced reserve drives me bananas. And here was my chance to finally vent all of my pent up irritation at the poor man because I now had a reason, rather than the rather vague, you're being rude, which works with my son but probably not with blase government employees.

Off I marched to the post office, letter in hand, ready to incinerate the man with my righteous rage. He was lounging against a wall talking on the phone when I came in. What chatting during work hours?! My shoulders hunched and I was read to pounce.

Some people have an amazing ability to diffuse anger and our friend at the post office had this trait. While taking absolutely no blame, he got me to remove my useless stamp from the envelope and add it to another one. He embarked on a speech about re-using stamps and the importance of doing it sneakily or else I would be fined. He was on my side after all! But wait, it was his fault I had to re-use the stamp in the first place. These thoughts faded to the back of my mind. He added an extra stamp, waved away my offer to pay and sent me on my way.

I left feeling like I'd gotten a deal. Righteous anger melted like ice-cream in the sun.