PLEASE CLOSE THE POST OFFICE!
Newman! The man who made NOT DELIVERING the U.S. Mail a hip endeavor.
I had to go to the dreaded post office in our small town.
The headline should polarize any gathering, but I'm not posting this to be controversial, my usual reason for writing something of this nature.
From the moment that first fax zapped itself to me in 1985, I thought it the death knell of the bloated, inefficient, unaccountable, and sometimes downright lazy, goldbricking USPS.
I was wrong.
For 35 years, the same groups who lament the Death of Big Bird (That's Hysterical Leftist for cutting off the funding for public television and radio), are also the folks who cry out, "But who will deliver the Sears catalog to East Jabip, North Dakota?" every time someone dares mention shutting down, ahem, Saturday mail delivery.
That question about North Dakota answers itself.
Today, I went to the tiny post office in the town where we currently reside as we await Mayor Hair on Fire to give the all clear on coming back and not having to dress like a clean room technician just to get the mail. The hours of our Petticoat Junction branch of the USPS over the past few weeks have been cut from "10am to 1pm lobby access, Monday through Friday," TO "Call Madame X and we may have your mail."
Or, we may not.
The house we've rented sits on a street about a block from the post office. If the f$#king post office is so incredibly blessed to be able to deliver a piece of paper to some remote outpost in the Rockies, how the f$#k can it NOT get a delivery to me 200 yards away?
Three reasons:
- It's a government organization. You can say the same thing about PBS, and the CPB (That's the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for those of you who attended public school after the mid-70s). They all suck at what they're supposed to do.
- It's staffed by people who have taken the motto, "Neither rain, nor sleet . . . " and turned it into "I'm tired. I won't go in today."
- Newman. The Seinfeld character made it hip to not deliver the mail.
I'm only half joking about Newman.
I spent a half day calling everyone who might have occasion to send me anything via the sanctified USPS. All my packages and mail are to be sent to New York City.
Fortunately, our NYC apartment building has a privately run package delivery room, which is efficient, polite, and well-managed. The mail boxes, sadly, are still the responsibility of the USPS, which is now only delivering every third day.
And that should tell you all you need to know.
Comments