Licenses and Shopping and Mail Delivery

The soccer season is over and I have to find some other way to pass a couple of hours on Saturdays. I could go visit the Wickenburg Cowboy Poetry event and sell some books, but I don't have a Wickenburg license to do that yet and since I post on Sundays that event will be over by the time this shows up on the blog..

Black Friday has come and gone this year and it was a no-shopping, stay-away-from-the-malls-and- stores day for us. We did most of our Xmas shopping before Thanksgiving so we didn't have to fight the crowds, but, guess what, it was almost as bad as Black Friday. People were out shopping from lack of anything else to do, is my guess. It's an unwritten law that nobody buys anything until the last minute, usually, but all the advertising gave them the bug to go spend money this year. PEOPLE, LISTEN UP! You shouldn't change your ways because some card sharp on the telly (British for TV) tells you to go shopping and spend your hard-earned money on the newest, unbelievable, fantastic, cheapest, double-thickest toilet paper or gadget that will make your kitchen like a spa or turn the TV set into a miracle bread-making machine. Uh-uh, just stay the Hell away from the stores and malls until you absolutely, positively can't wait any longer because Xmas Day is here - and then it's too late! See, the world didn't come to an end.

Back to licensing. Here in AZ it is required to buy a license for every little burg and town and city and county, almost, in which you want to set up your table and sell a book or two. I called the city of Glendale Tax and License people last week to find out about my application and was told it had been approved and mailed out on the 17th of November. WHERE IN THE HELL IS IT? We live only 10 or 15 miles away and by all rights the license should have been received the next day. Maybe they should initiate hand delivery and buy someone a mule, or make them walk, to deliver their licenses, it would get here sooner. Or maybe they spelled my last name wrong and sent it to someone else. Or, sent it to the wrong address. Them people at the post office have a hard time reading anything, let alone an address, I'm beginning to think.  I don't know how many popular events I missed by not having a license. My last name is only four letters long, but they could've spelled it backwards and the license ended up in the dead letter file somewhere for all they know.
WOO-EE! The stress a person has to put up with just to sell a book!  It's almost too much to bear. If I have a heart attack and be paralyzed from the neck down, who should I sue? The city? The post office? The delivery person? The mule that broke its leg crossing a ditch? Myself for expecting something so simple?

A-ah, the Hell with it! I think I'll go sit on the patio and think about a plot for my next novel.