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| Scarlet
Letters |
| The
Mailpersons of Cherry Hills |
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The
federal government is not a well-managed enterprise. This is not exactly
shocking news.
--
Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels |
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I was a big fan of "Murphy Brown" in the early days. She was smart, funny
and a reporter. It was the first show I'd seen out of reruns that had a
brain, and paid attention to the issues of the day.
I loved the early seasons, when they made fun of politics and issues. I
also laughed when she ran over the president with a bicycle. I loved her
dartboard with the saying of the week on it. I wanted to install one in
the newsroom, but my coworkers fear my aim.
Best of all, though, were Murphy's secretaries. They were either incompetant,
nuts or both. She went through more secretaries in one season than most
people go through socks.
Suddenly, I find myself relating to Murphy again, only I'm not high enough
on the totem pole to be tortured by strange secretaries. No, my problem
is my mailmen. Or to be politically correct, mailpersons.
I thought I'd left this problem of mail delivery behind me. In college,
I lived in one of the worst neighborhoods in Memphis. My mailbox was broken
into on a regular basis. The invisible thief would open letters that looked
like they might contain checks. Once, my birthday card from my grandmother
was opened. I had to call my grandmother and ask her if she had included
a check, which isn't exactly Emily Post, so I had to explain that if she
had, she might want to put a stop payment on it, which meant explaining
that I was living in the slums of Memphis. I solved the problem by getting
a P.O. box, and I've had no problems in the intervening years.
Last year, we moved to our quiet little subdivision and immediately discovered
that the neighborhood is ruled by The MailNazi. This guy was absolutely
nuts about cars blocking mailboxes. Never mind "neither rain nor sleet
nor snow nor hail..."; this guy refused to deliver your mail if your car
was within ten feet of the mailbox. God forbid he should step out of his
little LetterMobile.
The problem is that for much of the neighborhood, the only place to park
is on the street, and you can't park more than a few cars without blocking
the mailbox. Fortunately, the whole neighborhood pretty much works days,
so it was only a problem on Saturdays.
This guy was deadly serious about not blocking the mailbox. He had slips
of paper preprinted that he would put under your windshield wiper reminding
you that if you block a mailbox, you won't get your mail. Once he put one
such slip under the windshield wiper of my car when it was parked across
the street from the mailboxes.
One day he came knocking at the door all in a huff because my car had blocked
the mailbox for three straight days! I apologized as nicely as I could,
between coughs, and explained I was home with pneumonia, and that's why
the car hadn't moved. I said I'd get my husband to move the car when he
came home. The MailNazi huffed and stomped off.
That wasn't the last time he came knocking on my door, either. On more
than one occasion, he would knock on the door and scold me for parking
too close to my mailbox. "I can't get out of my truck all the time," he
says. I thought about pointing out that he had not only gotten out of his
truck, but crossed my lawn and rung my doorbell in order to scowl at me.
But I don't mess with Mailpersons.
Then came The MailFelon. Mail started disappearing. First people would
say they sent us something and it never arrived. A bill or two didn't
come, so we got cutoff notices, which thrilled me no end. Some mail had
obviously been opened, without the little stickers that said, "We opened
this, so sorry" that the U.S. Postal Service is supposed to put on them.
Then my husband's paychecks started vanishing, and had to get replacement
checks issued, which took weeks. We filed an official complaint with the
U.S. Postal Inspector's office. That was the end of the MailFelon.
Then we were on to The MailMoron. Almost every day for weeks, I found mail
that wasn't mine in my mailbox. Some of it belonged to a person who has
a similar name to mine but lives across town. Much of it belonged to people
who live on the same street with us.
It became a neighborhood ritual. Each evening, we would come home and check
the mail, and exchange the mail around to the appropriate mailbox. Perhaps
it was intended as a public service, to reconnect us to our neighbors.
Certainly I never complained - it wasn't like the MailFelon, who was probably
stealing our checks, or the MailNazi, who was plain nuts.
But the MailMoron disappeared as well, perhaps fleeing from anthrax-laden
letters. I know this because the mail in my mailbox is addressed to me.
I also know this because the other day, my doorbell rang. It was the MailNazi.
I was parked only four feet from my mailbox.
Perhaps it's time to give up and get a P.O. box. With the USPS raising
stamp prices all the time, we might be better to go to Fedex and email
anyway. Granted, the price of mailing a letter hasn't come close to keeping
up with inflation. And I feel sorry for them; it's rough delivering the
mail, especially on catalog day.
But it's not just incoming mail that's the problem - how many times have
you sent a thank-you not to your maiden aunt for the Christmas basket and
hear from relatives six months later that she just can't believe how rude
you were not to send a thank-you note? You can blame the postal service
forever - you still owe Aunt Martha big-time.
At the moment, I'm wondering if the postal service has derailed my career.
There are two short stories I've written that have been sitting on the
desks of magazine editors for months. The posted review time for both has
come and gone without a word of acceptance or rejection. Am I to conclude
that a) they're so enthralled with my work that they're saving up for the
$2,000 check they're sending me, b) they're so disgusted by my work that
they can't be bothered to reject it, or c) the postal service lost my submissions.
Even in my most egotistical moment,s I rather doubt the answer is (a).
There's also the matter of a catalog order I paid for weeks ago. Literally.
It has been nearly one month since I mailed these people a check, and still
it has not arrived in their facility about 100 miles away. They are beginning
to send me nasty letters, and since I ordered it through my company, the
co-workers are starting to get irritated with me. And I'm starting to get
irritated with the U.S. Postal Service.
Some of us are wondering if there's a vendetta against our subdivision
in the government. We have occasionally been completely forgotten by the
trash men. We keep getting the most psychotic of mailpersons. We certainly
don't get extra services like repaving the street - we like the cracks
just the way they are. Maybe it's because we're a neighborhood of young
professionals and families with young children - we have jobs, we have
lives, we have no time to yell at City Hall, or the Postmaster. Maybe that's
what they count on.
As Tom Hanks' Fedex executive said in "Cast Away": "First it's two minutes
late, then next week it'll be four minutes late, then six minutes late,
and before you know it, we're the U.S. Mail." |
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Column Credo:
I'd be sitting in a restaurant and someone
would come up and say, "I don't like your column on this or that." I'd
hand him 35 cents. That was what the paper cost then. The refund on the
product. He'd get upset. Well, that's one attitude I have. Today,
it's half a buck. What can you buy for half a buck? Do I owe them something
that will be worth reading a hundred years from now? I don't think so.
Do I owe them something of the quality of Mark Twain? Naaa. Not for 50
cents.
I guess what I owe them is that when I
write something, it's what I think. No editor told me to write it. I'm
not doing it because the Tribune editorial page will like it, or not. So
they can be quite sure that they're getting what I think at the moment.
-- Mike Royko
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