Ian Post-Office should hang his head down in shame. He has embarrassed his parents Ian Post (who invented posts) and Iana Office (who came up with the idea of a special room for working in) and brought a curse down upon himself which if there is any justice will see his service being replaced by a variety of more efficient and less greedy competitors (and if that happens you will know why). The £1.58 letter arrived today and it's a good job I paid for it, because it was some bumph and some running vests from SCOPE for the imminent half-marathon. Had my good friends at SCOPE decided to send me stuff without any postage on it? Should I go round there and punch them hard in the upper arm, perhaps pausing on the way to punch any disabled person I saw on my journey? No, not really. It wasn't really their fault. The envelope had been franked with one of those ink stamps that businesses can apply themselves and yes, it was a little bit ineptly applied so you couldn't see all of it, but it was still clearly franked. And the envelope was marked as coming from SCOPE, which Ian Post-Office would know was a charity. Where maybe a disabled person was employed to frank the mail. So yeah maybe it wasn't totally legitimate and maybe (I don't know how it works) they weren't able to find out who to charge. But that's still pretty cold.
And there's a possibility that SCOPE have paid the correct money to post the letter and now Ian Post-Office has creamed some extra money off of me as well. If I worked at the Post Office I would be moving mountains (of junk mail) to make a nice donation to SCOPE to make up for this public relations disaster and to lift the curse that I have placed upon their business. And if I worked at SCOPE I would sack whoever franks the mail.
It's a good job I am self-employed and have no actual powers over anyone else's life.
But that's the mystery solved. It was definitely worth paying for the parcel as it has some important stuff in it, but I hope the pound that the Post Office has made from me will be used to buy a weak screw that is used to bolster a beam, but which will break and cause the beam to come crashing down on Ian Post-Office's head, making him disabled. But that SCOPE is 58p short of the money needed to help him.
I guess that's an unlikely outcome. But if there is a God then surely that will happen. Leastways it would be the kind of thing that would happen all the time if I was God. So again, lucky I am just a self-employed man, with no employees and no supernatural abilities or omnipotence.
If you're feeling guilty Ian Post-Office then
sponsor me here.
Training for the half marathon (which is now just a little over a fortnight away) is going OK. We managed a 6.75 mile run this morning in a little over 73 minutes. That's still only a little over half the distance required, but I am pretty confident that injury aside both me and my girlfriend will make it round the course. I am enjoying it more than her at the moment, but I think it's mainly down to the fact that I am still fit enough to manage to run this kind of distance at my advanced age. Though there was a little twinge in my knee at about the 6 mile point so maybe my days of long distance running are numbered. Maybe my days of walking are numbered. But that's the good thing about running for SCOPE - if I end up damaging myself irreparably I will benefit from the money I am raising. It's literall a win/win situation.
