going postal

I recently watched the Seinfeld episode where Newman is hoping to get the promotion where he will be sent to Hawaii, and in an effort to help him along in his promotion, Jerry helps him out with delivering his mail (even going so far as to deliver it on Sunday). I love it at the end where Newman receives the phone call informing him that he did not get the promotion because too much mail was actually delivered. With Jerry's assistance, he went where no mailman has gone before--broke the 50% delivery mark! There's also that episode with Wilford Brimley as Postmaster General where Kramer goes up against the post office and refuses all mail service. Then last night I was talking with a friend about what a pain the post office is. She's got lots of things to send (one of which is my birthday present) and is simply avoiding going as it is such a time-consuming pain in the rear. I avoid going to the post office and instead go to the friendly neighborhood UPS store in my building which (praise the heavens!) takes the regular mail as well.

I thought I would take a minute to gripe about the postal system. Not only did we experience a disastrous year of no postal service at our home in Riverton, we've had a few problems here. If any of you haven't heard about the mail delivery trauma we lived through for an entire year before moving here or have forgotten how awful it was, feel free to let me know, and I will be happy to tell you all about it. Even now, the road has been done for months, and I don't think Eric and Laura are receiving mail at their house. Since coming here, one package simply never made it and was returned to sender (Grandma Vawdrey) like a month and a half later without any indication that it ever even got near us. Another package that amazon.com for some odd reason shipped USPS instead of UPS had to be picked up at the post office. I found this a bit odd as the mail person left me a note indicating that they had buzzed and had received no response. I was home ALL DAY--in fact, at the time, having just had a baby, I was home ALL DAY EVERY DAY FOR WEEKS!!!! Finally, when we went to Salt Lake for two weeks around the holidays I requested a hold on our mail from 12/20 until 1/4 with redelivery scheduled for 1/4. I expected a barrage of mail on that day with two weeks worth having piled up, but no, it arrived like two weeks later. Needless to say, I don't much like the postal system.

They do have an interesting way of doing things here in the city, though. They have blue mail boxes for sending mail and green mail boxes for storage of mail. They even have postal police. I saw a postal police car the other day but can't imagine what they do. The mail trucks drop the mail for that neighborhood in the green mail boxes, and the mail people retrieve it and deliver it. Remember all those times as a child you ran out to get the mail when the mailman drove up and were reprimanded for approaching the mail truck? It happened to me several times. Here the mail people push carts with the mail which they leave unattended all over the place on the street. And here I thought mail was this precious cargo that must be protected with their lives...

Here's to hoping no one I know (including myself) will have any disastrous run-ins with the postal system anytime soon!