Hey guys. Don’t freak out or anything, but I just found the coolest place in the Queen City. 

Please try to contain your excitement.
Image courtesy of Google Maps. Thanks, Google!

And it’s my local post office.

You may be wondering how this could possibly be. Everyone* knows that the post office is a circle of hell around the holidays – especially if you live in a city.

*All the people I mention my love of the post office to. Which actually IS everyone.

And I do, in fact, live in a city.

See? Big buildings = real city. Point proven.
This image is also thanks to Google Maps, which has way more geographical knowledge than I do.

See? See? There are cars. One of them is a taxi.** Just out of this shot is a wad of police cars, proving we have city-like crime. And we have a bustling metropolitan area with traffic and annoyingly complex parking structures.

**To be honest, this is actually the only taxi I have ever seen in my city. The South does not believe in taxis. 

But just forget all that when it’s time to go to the post office.***

***Unless you actually live in Uptown****, in which case, you are super screwed. Have fun waiting in line forever, suckers.
****Which is what the Queen City calls our downtown, because we’re all clearly out of our minds.*****
*****Also because our downtown is the highest geographical point in the whole city, which I hate knowing, because it takes all the fun out of the fact that we’re clearly out of our minds.

When it’s time to go to the post office, you’re going to travel through time and space and into a strange land. A land where rednecks are probably going to murder you to the Deliverance soundtrack, and people are totally selling boiled peanuts on the side of the road before Christmas.******

******Apparently this is a totally normal thing. I asked the guy. His name is Jim. I did not take his picture in case he was barely containing his Deliverance-murder instincts. 

This is what is directly across the street from my nearest post office. This is clearly the liveliest part of this neighborhood.
Also, thanks again, Google Maps!

I even took a picture of my own to prove that my post office is not somehow just trapped on a strange country-town street. It’s literally an entire neighborhood that does not belong in a city.

No tall buildings, as far as the eye can see.

So basically, my drive to the post office was surreal. Also, unnerving and terrifying.

But by golly, I had Christmas presents to mail. And they were going to get there BY Christmas, for once.******* And so I persevered through this disturbing land, and finally got to the post office.

*******Despite the impression I give of clearly having everything together, I am notorious for giving people Christmas presents in, like, February.

Where everyone was smiling an happy. The Friday before Christmas. The place oozed a sort of zen I have never seen. It was like going to the post office in Mayberry********

********Which is also in North Carolina, as it happens. Check it out, y’all.*********
*********This is the most terrifying place in all of NC, in my humble opinion. But that’s a story for another day. 

It was MAGIC, guys.

In other news, if your Christmas shopping isn’t done, allow me to recommend this:

Specially designed to be the most useless gift in the history of time. You can click here and buy 10 on Amazon.

The perfect gift to convince everyone that you are the worst gift giver of all time. It’s my new favorite thing on Amazon.