Please Mr. Postman

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Added: Sat. Mar 06, 2010 2:16pm
Posted in: Writing

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This morning, Travis, my mailman, delivered the bad news.

 “…it’s because of the economy, Mr. C ”, he said.

“Travis, you guys have threatened to do this many times. ”

“Well this time we mean it. We really do. We just can’t afford to do Saturday deliveries anymore.”

“What do you mean ’can’t afford ’? How much are stamps these days? About $8.00 apiece? Seems like you guys should be able to afford to deliver the mail on Sundays too. I remember when stamps were a dime.”

“I don't know what stamps cost these days, Mr. C. Personally, I do everything online. You know…shop…. pay bills…. everything”, he shrugged.

“TRAVIS NO! Not you,” I gasped!

“You gotta live in the real world, Mr. C. Anyway, she says that we can’t afford to do Saturday mail anymore.”

“She? Your manager?”

“No. Suze?”

“Suze?”

“You know Suze. Suze  Orman. She’s that woman on TV who knows everything and tells your wife or girlfriend whether or not you can afford to do stuff. You’ve seen her on the cable. Her answer is always “no, you can’t afford it”. The big guy’s wife, you know,---- the Postmaster General’s wife----- was on her TV show last night and she says that the Post Office can no longer afford to do Saturday deliveries. She was pretty mad about the whole thing. You should have seen her Mr. C.”

“Who said that? The big guy’s wife or Suze Orman?”

“Both of them! ‘Course, ‘the thing’ is that Congress has to sign off on it. Right now they are mulling things over.”

“Well nobody mulls like Congress. Or takes as long. I guess I’ll be seeing you on Saturdays for awhile longer then.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, Mr. C, Nancy Pelosi is scheduled for the Suze Show tonight! By the way, here’s your mail. By the way, you might want to get Sports Illustrated to send you another copy of the Swimsuit Issue. I kinda tore the picture of Brooklyn Decker on the cover. Sorry. ”

 

With all due respect to both Travis (and Brooklyn Decker), my reaction to the Post Office’s “new” idea is “Yippeeeeeee”! How come you guys didn’t do this a long time ago?” In fact, I think that the Post Office should just stop the home delivery of mail altogether! It would probably save quite a bit of money, lower the ‘Overall National Bad News Quotient’, and thereby raise the collective spirits and psyche of the entire country.

 

I no longer get checks in the mail. Any meager funds that happen to wander in my direction come via what the bank calls “direct deposit”. (Even then, it only stays in the account about three nanoseconds before those people at Macy’s, Georgia Power and a few other places, somehow gather  a bunch of electrons together, send them over to the bank and faster than you can say “Ben Bernanke”, it’s all drained out.  Those electrons seem to be both fast and efficient.) To be honest, all I ever seem to get from the Post Office is mostly bad news or, at best, stuff that you could really care less about at the moment: bills, junk mail, second requests, junkier mail, past due notices, tax forms, jury summons, layaway expirations, and more even junkier mail.  I can’t recall ever getting a piece of good news by mail. Even birthday cards are another reminder that I’m not getting any younger.  Occasionally, I might receive discount coupons but by the time they are delivered to me, they’ve usually expired on yesterday.  I do get a few magazines in the mail, but Travis, I’m pretty sure, reads them before I do. If it’s one thing that I hate, it’s when someone else reads the magazines that I have subscribed to before I do. I don’t want to read them anymore. (Hell, you never know where Travis has been, if you get my drift.)

 

The whole thing is very depressing when you think about it. I’m pretty sure that this is the case for most other living American as well. For example, when is the last time that you saw the 62 year old neighbor lady do cartwheels back to the house because she’s just read a letter at the mailbox saying that she’s just won the lottery? (You’re right. Never.) The only time that I can remember getting a good news delivery from the mailman was years ago and it was something in a plain brown wrapper.

 

Most good news, time honored phrases such as:

 

-”She’s postponed the History Test until Monday.” OR

- “The check cleared. We have $0.85 left in the account.” OR

-“Whew! The pregnancy test came back negative! We were lucky

    this time. I was worried. You gotta, I mean gotta get that          vasectomy, Harold. I mean it.”

 

are all delivered over the phone, in person, and typically at either 10.00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m on weekdays. (I have these 'Good News' delivery times on good authority, by the way.)

 

Of course, if the Post Office ever really saw fit to stop delivering mail and require people to come get it the bad news instead, the question remains as to what will become of Travis and his friends? My suggestion is to turn all of the Post Offices into Starbuck’s locations or better yet, liquor stores. After all, many of us can use an alcoholic drink ---or two---once we open our mail.

 

 

© Copyright 2010 Will Cantrell