Just as I was steeling myself for the annual run to the post office -- I was planning a midnight run to the airport branch, hoping that it's still open all night -- the doorbell rang. It was our Christmas parcel from Mom. "You want to take mine?" I asked the mail carrier, wistfully, pointing to the carton I had just finished packing and addressing. It was a seasonal guy, whom I had never seen around before. "Does it have the postage on it?" he replied. "If you used Click-N-Ship, I can take it."

Alas, I hadn't. But that didn't mean I couldn't. I have a little postage scale that weighs up to five pounds. Sure enough, my one and only package to be mailed this year weighed only 4.75 pounds. And so onward onto the Postal Service website I went, clicking and typing away until my printer spit out a label that I taped onto the box. Postage paid, delivery confirmation, $12.80. Cool.

But now what? There was a button you could click to have your regular mail carrier pick the package up when he or she delivers your mail, but we had already received our mail for today, and given that the shipping days 'til Christmas are running out, I resigned myself to having to drive down to the P.O. to drop the thing off. So I threw on some clothes and hopped in the car, bound for the local branch.

Just as I stopped at the stop sign on our corner, our regular mail carrier pulled up on the next block. I pulled over, rolled down the window, and asked him if he could "take a Click-N-Ship." Sure, he said with a smile. This guy is a great one for customer service. Last week he walked a full city block to the bus stop where he noticed that I was standing, to get my signature on a receipt, so that he could leave us a package on the first try.

"You don't want to get anywhere near a post office this time of year," he observed today as he ran a scanner over one of the bar codes on my newly printed label. "Heck, I wouldn't go there myself if I didn't have to." The scanner reported that the box was officially being accepted "in the system," and so I bid it, and my helpful carrier, goodbye.

Now that the box is gone, I'm not completely angst-free about the whole experience. I've never tried this process before, and the week before Christmas is no time for an experiment with this sort of thing. But hey, it got me out of that post office line, and that's worth the risk.

It freed up time for another trip I needed to take -- back to the mall.