Time To Go

I was shopping for groceries with my sainted wife when the cashier asked if we needed stamps.  This

is when I entered the trance.

 

Over a score ago, I was standing in line at a local Arlington, Virginia, post office, waiting to purchase enough postage to send out my payment for bills.  The line was long and I persisted because the electric company needed my cash.

 

The black clerk – we called that race of people “black” at that time because that’s what they wanted – was busy gabbing with a buddy.  She was so engrossed in her private conversation with another black lady that she didn’t notice the dozen paying patrons standing in the growing line.

 

Her demeanor immediately switched from cordial to surly when I stepped up to the counter for my turn.  Upon asking for stamps, she threw the pack on the counter, never looking up.  Money was exchanged and the deal was consummated curtly and mime-like.

 

This experience recurred every few months as my postage supply depleted until this clerk vanished.

 

She was no longer behind the counter, much to my delight.  She may have been reassigned, fired, or simply retired.  Nonetheless, she was not there trying to ignore her paying customers.  And all was well with the world.

 

But, this is where the story actually begins.  Each year, in the style of birthdays, the United States Postal Service – their words, not mine – celebrate another 365 days of poor service while begging for more money from Congress to continue this waste of tax dollars.

 

Each year they pathetically explain why they lost not only your mail and packages, but your respect and admiration.  Last year they generated over $47,000,000,000 in operating losses over the last ten years.  That’s about $50 per second.

 

But, if they only had more money, they could make a profit this year.  And so it goes with Congress agreeing to see their loss and raise them another few billion to keep the game going.

 

With this snowstorm of cash, the USPS has tried to remake itself by adding things other than postal-related stuff for sale.  Shirts, ties, and coffee mugs are just a few things that didn’t make them hip.

 

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” is not the official motto of the Postal Service, either.  It has no official motto.

 

But if it did, it should be “We lose what you lick.” 

 

Maybe it would be prudent to make stamps more easily available in the post office itself, rather than the grocery store.

 

And it might behoove them to remember they have no competition in the mail business, as it is a federal crime to compete against the USPS.  In other words, they are the only game in town.

 

Perhaps that motto should be “Surprisingly we’re still in business.”