The Avonhead Post Office

Imagine that you really really didn’t like talking to new people. Imagine that you had worked in retail and ever since you projected your own hatred of customers onto all the people whose shops or businesses you entered. Imagine if instead of thinking that the grass was always greener in someone else’s yard, you spent all your time in other people’s yards thinking that really your own grass was really pretty good and that the time spent away from that grass was a bit of a waste.

If, like me, you did all those things you’d probably be a) screwed up and b) making regular visits to the Avonhead Post Office to collect your mail. Note that I said you’d be screwed up, not that I’d be screwed up. I’m used to it.

I happened upon the Avonhead Post Office by chance. It’s not in an especially convenient location, although it’s not far from the highway out of town near the edge of Christchurch, so it could be a lot worse. When I bought my car, the previous owner and I drove across town to a mechanic’s workshop quite close to the Avonhead shopping centre, and after the mechanic had decided that all was well with the car we went to the Avonhead Post Office to fill in the rego paperwork. Because I filed the paperwork there and I’ve got no fixed address over here I directed the return mail for the car registration process to be held at the counter. Once I had some mail waiting there it made sense to direct my other mail there to collect, and now I’m something of a regular.

OK, so it’s all making sense at this stage. Except that really the Avonhead Post Office is not very convenient at all. It would be much better to have my mail held in central Christchurch near the big supermarkets and youth hostels and Laundromats etc. But of course, I can’t change post offices now. For a start, going to a new post office would mean talking to the staff at a new post office. It’s natural to assume that the staff at the new post office would hate me, since in my experience it’s natural for any staff member to automatically despise the customers or clients they interact with. I know what you’re thinking – according to this logic the staff at Avonhead already hate me. But if this logic is correct and I change post offices I’ll be resented by staff at BOTH locations. The new post office people will roll their eyes and groan inwardly at my approach, while the staff at Avonhead will start trading stories about “that weird guy that used to come in with the panda tan” until I’m a figure of reviled legend. By staying at Avonhead I save another entire post office from having to deal with another customer. And finally, I know Avonhead. I know that there’s a passable sushi place in the same shopping mall. I know that the post office also doubles as a bookstore that seems to specialise in biographies of ambiguously famous sportspeople. I know that the staff will actually hold onto my mail and will give it to me if I request it.

Well, at least I thought that the staff would hold onto my mail. However, a letter I’ve been waiting for from the New Zealand Snowsports Instructor’s Alliance hasn’t arrived. This could mean one of two things. Either the Avonhead post office has decided that they’re sick of the guy with the panda tan or the NZSIA has decided that maybe I shouldn’t have passed that instructor’s course. Both would be fair enough.