But You Don't Understand, McBride Is A Tiny Place

         Because the Village of McBride is such a small place, when we have to deal with businesses or organizations from urban areas, they often just don’t realize that things are different here, and we know how things work in our tiny village.  We are often asked for a lot of information that is irrelevant and often leads to frustration when they don’t believe what we are trying to explain.

    When we order something that will be shipped to us, they insist that we give them our home address for shipping.  They will not accept our mailing Box Number, even though a lot of the things we order will not be delivered to our home, but will instead be put in our Post Office Box.  In our little community, if those orders are not put in our PO Box, they will be dropped off somewhere in town, and we will have to drive into McBride to pick them up.

    We get the message that “Your order has been delivered” but we are never told where it has been delivered to.  It wasn’t delivered to our house, so that leaves a couple of other possibilities as to where it might be.  It might be at the Post Office, or maybe it is at Uncle Mark’s Store.

        I once got a bit fed up with an emergency call I had to make to 911, because they kept wasting time asking me needless questions,  because they didn’t know what a small place McBride was.  Here is what happened:

    In the 1990’s it had become our habit among some of us who worked at the Forest Service to walk down to the post office during our lunch hour to pick up our mail.  One day in February of 1995 as we were approaching the Post Office, we saw an elderly woman, who was walking to her car, miss her step off of the curb of the sidewalk.  She fell forward, hitting a parked car, then landing on the street.

    Several people rushed over to help her, and I immediately went into our small post office to tell them to call an ambulance.  The McBride Hospital is about two blocks away from the Post Office.

            The Post Office worker hesitated and didn’t want to make the call, then she told me I should do it, which I did.

    The 911 operator who sat in Kamloops, 400 kms (250 miles) away, began to ask me questions:  “What city?”

    I answered, “McBride”

    Then she asked, “Where in McBride?”

    I replied, “At the Post Office”

    “On what street is the Post Office”  and I told her, “Main Street”

    I was then asked, “On what block of Main Street?”  At which point I became frustrated.

        I realized that was probably a relevant question to ask for some big city, but I was calling from the tiny McBride, with only one Post Office.  Everyone that lives in or around McBride knows where the Post Office is, so I told her, “The ambulance people will know where the Post Office is.” 

        Fortunately, the 911 Operator was satisfied with that information, so didn’t waste any more time asking me any other questions about the location.

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