Going postal

Last week a woman from the Post Office calls and sets up an appointment with me for “processing.” She doesn’t go into details, and in fear that I may blow the whole thing, I don’t ask any questions. I am told to arrive at noon at the post office in Queen Anne, and that I will be scheduled to be at the medical unit at 1pm.

And that’s all.

Of course, I have no idea where Queen Anne is. Being that I live in Bellevue, I usually try my best to stay away from Seattle during the week. There’s traffic and pedestrians and cars everywhere (yeah, traffic, I know.) So I leave home nice and early, giving me lots of time to get there and find parking, because you know parking is awful hard to find in big cities. Parking that doesn’t run you completely dry, that is.

So I get there and I’m on time – which we need to establish right now, is a feat on its own – and I nervously drop quarters in the parking meter across the street from the post office. Quarters, because I was all kinds of prepared. See in downtown Honolulu, there are evil parking meters that take ONLY quarters. No sense taking up valuable space with nickles and dimes when you can make people pay for even more time that they don’t need using only quarters. So when I left for Seattle, I was sure to pack enough quarters to park a small fleet.

I make my way up to the 2nd floor, put on my “I really want to be a mailgirl” attitude on, and pull out my good pen. Surely there will be writing.

And there was. There were forms to sign and a questionnaire about my medical history. There was fingerprinting – smashing my fingers on a glass plate hooked up to a computer. All my fingers – not just the thumb like they did when I got my state ID in Hawaii. This was each and every finger. Several times, too, because the machine seems to be very picky. You had to have just the right combination of natural oil, dry finger, and moisturizer.

And then she handed me a map and explained how to get to the medical unit. Of course it was in yet another part of town that I had never been to. Somewhere by Boeing. God only knows where that place is, but thanks to the wonderful green map, I found it. And only five minutes late. Which really wasn’t a bad thing, because the staff nurse was out on lunch, and according to the “will return at . . .” sign, she would be back at 1:15. She won’t even know I was late.

So this medical thing – first there was a drug test. Pee in a cup, bring the cup out, maintain constant eye contact with the pee sample to ensure that no tampering is going on, and wait for five spots to turn blue. If they turn blue, you pass. Of course I had no reason to be worried about the pee test, but it was such torture waiting for those little spots to turn blue! I mean what if something went wrong? What if the testing strip had been contaminated before I even got there?

Anyhow, all was fine with that. Then there was a vision test, a blood pressure test (thank God I have normal bp, despite my size!), and a review of the medical history thing that I filled out.

I passed and return to the personnel place next week for “final processing.” I’m so stoked! My actual starting date is the 15th.

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