In this country bubble...

I went to the post office today to mail a card to my friend J in England. Rather than going to the 'real' post office and wait on their usually long lines, I took the card to the local hardware store which has a postal service window in the back of the store. They don't accept packages going overseas, but they will take letters and card-sized envelopes.

On the envelope, I wrote the name of J's town and postal code, along with the words "England, UK." After about two minutes of watching the clerk typing on his keyboard and searching the screen, the conversation that followed went something like this:

"UK stands for Ukraine, right?" said the clerk.
"No. UK stands for The United Kingdom," said I.
"Oh... yeah... but the country is Ukraine, right?"
"The country is England," said I.
"England is a country? Since when?" said the clerk.
"Since about 1015," said I.
"Wow. Cool. But UK is still the Ukraine, right?" said the clerk.
"Not hardly," said I.  Then I suggested he type Great Britain into his computer, which he did.
"Oh yeah. There it is. Great Britain. Y'all might want to write that on this here envelope so it doesn't end up in Ukraine," he said.

I resisted the urge to tell the clerk that between the little post office window in this little hardware store in this little town and the post offices in and around The United Kingdom, someone along the way will surely know that UK doesn't stand for Ukraine, and England has been a country since the Vikings nearly destroyed it and the successors of Alfred The Great came along and tidied things up a bit.

Give me a blessed royal break.