Arbitrary

[thessalian]

Last night, I stayed up way too late RPing and ended up heading out to the post office before I went to bed. It was nice and quiet and I found the delivery office with no problem ... but those post office guys scare me with the lacksadaisical attitude sometimes. Look, the little card you get in the post says to bring ID to make sure that they're giving the parcel to the right person. I get that. I'm not horribly paranoid or anything, but I do know that in a building like mine, the post all gets dumped into a central foyer. This is not the safest thing in the whole wide world, admittedly, as it makes identity theft a distinct possibility, but that's how it works. So anyone in your building could get hold of your delivery notice card. Which means that anyone in your building that wanted to could get your stuff and use and/or sell it. I don't believe in being constantly obliged to carry ID for any Authority Figure who wants to see it (I mean, seriously, fascism much?) but there are things that I believe should require ID to do. Registering at a doctor's surgery, for example. Getting a library card. Banking. Picking up anything that's meant for a specific someone.

So when I turn up at the delivery office with my passport and the water bill just in case they want proof of address? It might be nice if the slothlike creature behind the counter actually looked at the ID that his office actually requires him to look at!

...Let's just say that I lack faith in the postal system.

Anyway, I headed home, I crawled into bed ... and then, somewhere around two, the fire alarm went off. Again. Apparently the downstairs neighbours got hold of someone who looked at it, prodded it for awhile (on and off ear-splitting wail, hoo-freakin-rah) and from what I overheard from downstairs, could do nothing with it. Also, the downstairs neighbours lied about how it happened in what I assume is a bid to avoid being charged the fee to get the damn thing reset. So we're without a fire alarm for the moment. Which ... y'know, I think we'll survive. We've all got smoke detectors, and they're loud enough to be heard throughout the building. Yeesh.

So now I'm underslept, with a burgeoning headache (though at least part of that is a lack of caffeine; I haven't had my coffee yet). Great way to end the year. Heh. But I have my new Sims 3 expansion to go poke around with and I should really switch the kettle on. I've got a liiiiittle bit of booze and I've ordered enough Chinese food to be leftovers for days, so that's pretty awesome. I mean, this kind of thing isn't exactly what someone normally thinks of as a New Year's celebration, but I'm not paying above the odds to cram myself into a room full of total strangers to celebrate something that, given I more or less ascribe to the idea that the year ended ten days ago, really doesn't mean a whole lot to me anyway.

*ahem* Not that I'm judgemental. Whenever you want to celebrate year's end is cool by me, and I wish you all the best in the coming year. And now I'm going to go torture little pixellated people for awhile.

Comments

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I've had the same experience at the PO, though I have a tad less reason to worry than you do, since I have my own mailbox on the front of the house, so my orange slips are relatively safe. But...whatever. Enjoy New Year's. I'm totally with you re: staying away from over-crowded, over-priced, over-loud melees.