Rules Are Made to be Broken

by Julie Coulter Bellon

There are times when rules must be broken. Yesterday was one of those times.

I was standing in line at the post office and turned my back for a moment and a rather large man butted in front of me. I turned back and there he was. He stared me down with his small beady little eyes and I admit, I said nothing. Whatever, I thought. The line was moving pretty fast and I didn't think it would matter. Until I heard the six words that every parent dreads. My three year old looked up at me and said loudly, "Mom, I need to go potty."

There was a small bench near where we were standing, so I had him go sit on that. It worked for all of two minutes and then he stood up, doing a war dance, saying again, "I need to go potty BAD!"

The man who had butted in front of me, looked at my son in obvious distress, looked back at me and graciously offered to let me go in front of him. "Thanks," I said as I walked up to the teller. I plopped my package down, thinking I'd quickly get it stamped and be on my way to find a potty. Unfortunately, I got one of the slowest tellers in the universe. He did the ‘hunt and peck' method on the keyboard and messed up several times. Normally this is not a problem for me, but when you have a child next to you jumping up and down saying over and over, "I need to go NOW" it creates a sense of urgency in a parent. Another few minutes pass by and the urgency was kicked up a notch with, "Mom it's almost coming out."

I leaned over the counter and said, "Do you have a restroom we can use?"

The teller barely looked up at me and said, "No. It is against the rules to let any public person use our facilities. If the inspector came while an unauthorized person was in the back, we could be fined. It is definitely not something we can do. We do not break the rules."

The teller's little speech was punctuated by another cry of "Mom it's going to come out!" And I said to the teller, "You're going to have a puddle on the floor to clean up." He nodded, unfazed.

After another thirty seconds, I said I was probably going to have to come back. My child was in misery and I couldn't stand it any longer. I reached for my package, and he gave a loud sigh. "I can't finish the transaction if you do that." I nodded, knowing that it's hard to finish the transaction if the person has to leave before they pay, and I picked up my child and sat him on the counter. It was a staredown. I looked at the teller, he looked at me, and my son looked at both of us and squealed, "It's coming out! It's coming out!"

At that point the teller panicked. He took one look at the counter, my child, and me, then ran and found a woman teller (which was odd to me, but okay) and frantically whispered in her ear, all the while pointing at us. He walked back toward me and said, "it's against the rules to have any unauthorized people in the back. We could be fined, but if you will just follow her she will show you the way to the restroom." Then he added, "I won't be able to finish the transaction until you get back."

I barely waited to listen to him finish his spiel again before I picked up my child in a football hold and ran to the back of the post office. By this time, my little boy is yelling, "It's coming out! It's coming out!" so all of us started running faster, dodging mail bags, and post office people on the way to the bathroom. My son and I burst through the bathroom door, ran into a stall and he barely made it, but he did, a huge relief for both of us.

We were back in front of our teller in a matter of minutes where he again reminded me that it's against the rules to have unauthorized people in the back. They could be fined. But I guess when it came right down to it, they would rather have a fine than a puddle to clean up.

There are times when rules must be broken. And thankfully, that was one of them.