So, the subject of this rant has probably been the inspiration for many an angsty teenage basement band song: being stuck in the ‘burbs without a car.  I know I’m really progressing into adulthood when I begin ranting about the woes of driving instead of my usual woes of gosh-darnit I can’t get gold in Mario Kart Special Cup!! WHY?!

I mean I shouldn’t be complaining at all: I’ve got a pretty sweet setup here.  No rent, mommy cooks me delicious food, and I watch Netflix streaming/Hulu all day.  Where the real problems begin is when I need to watch…Netflix DVDs.  Then shit hits the fan.

So there a few logistical issues with mailing back these darn Netflix DVDs.  Now in theory, I could send them to work with my dad, where he can mail them out.  But surprisingly, my Netflix needs are not the top priority at his busy place of business (why not, dad?!) and this method is a bit unreliable.  So I decided, I’ll be independent!  I’ll mail these bad boys myself!

Again, in theory, I could just walk the DVDs to my mailbox and put up the red flaggy for the mailman to pick them up.  But this kind of requires me to be able to awaken before the mailman comes at a very early 12:30 pm.  (Yeah I could leave it there the night before…but that’s way too much forethought).   But this morning, miraculously, I woke up at 12:20 and was like, today’s the day!!  I GOT THIS.  I put on some sneakers and walked down my driveway with my DVDs proudly in hand, only to find that a) the mailman had already come and gone, and b) there WAS NO RED FLAGGY ON OUR MAILBOX.  When the hell did that happen?!  So…that option….kinda died.

My other options involved getting to either a blue mailbox or a post office.  The 2 post offices near my house are about a 5 minute and 6 minute drive, respectively.  But walking there….ain’t no joke.  So I googled where the closest blue mailboxes were and found one nestled in the backstreets of my town.  Long story short, 1.2 miles and 9 Glee songs later, I discovered that the blue mailbox had….DISAPPEARED.  (I should have heeded the warning on the site that blue mailboxes have been disappearing left and right, but I thought, nahhh this mailbox will definitely still be there.  Hubris.) 

At this point, I was kinda dejected.  All that struggle and no payoff.  Netflix DVDs decidedly UN-mailed.  But then I heard a truck passing, and I turned around…andholycrap it was a MAIL TRUCK!  Yay!  So I chased it down until it stopped, silently stalked the mailwoman as she delivered mail to 3 houses, and then jumped out from behind some bushes while waving my red Netflix mailers in the air, yelling HI CAN I GIVE THESE TO YOU?!  She looked scared.  But she took ‘em!  I hope that they actually got mailed. 

So yeah.  No car means you walk 1.2 miles to an invisible mailbox, freak out a poor mailwoman, and then walk the 1.2 miles back home just to mail your f’in Netflix DVDs.  There must be a better way. 

rant by Liz (wearing some desperately-longing-for-a-car-to-facilitate-her-Netflix-addiction rantpants)