Well paid, but still crabby

August 20, 2021 14 Comments

I like what we used to call the post office, back in the days when its unofficial motto meant something. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Well, that was then. Now, they miss many days and often run late. We used to be a model for the world. Today we are a model for Chile.

I like the post office because it does what I can’t do — get a parcel to someone at a distance — and at a decent price. (The average postal worker makes over $50,000. For that, you think you’d get service with a smile, particularly when you are greeted as a “guest.”)

The service was created by my favorite Founding Father, Ben Franklin.

Why is he my favorite? Well, in addition to being a Revolutionary, he was a newspaperman (the first gossip columnist as Poor Richard), he was good with the ladies and a smooth talker. (He launched the postal service in part because it helped deliver his newspapers. So we learn that having a profit motive is not necessarily a bad thing.)

So there I am at my local post office with a Target bag full of my books that I am mailing out to those who ordered them (including constant posters Vince and Tony). I walked there in a light rain and turned in the books to be weighed and stamped. A couple or three books were damp from the light rain.

I return about three hours later — the books are too heavy for me to handle more than a dozen at a time — and the clerk says, “The books are wet.”

I agree and tell her it is raining. A few books have a some drops on them,

”Why don’t you use a umbrella?”

I hold up my cane. “I have a cane in one hand, a shopping bag of books in the other. How would I hold an umbrella — with my third hand?”

”You could wear an umbrella hat, ” she says, triumphantly.

”That would keep my head dry, but not the books.”

She gives me a look, as if the rain were more inconvenient for her, in her dry cubicle, than it is for me, on the wet street.

I tell her I’ll be back in the afternoon. Maybe it won’t be raining.

P.S.: If you are a regular here, I won’t mind going to the post office for you. Ordering the book is one way of thanking me for this blog. You can use the handsome website

https://www.presscardthebook.com

14 thoughts on “Well paid, but still crabby”

  1. You know who else was a gossip columnist?
    Edgar Allan Poe!
    In 1846, he was living in New York, but was approached by Philadelphia-based “Godey’s Lady’s
    Book” to write a series of observations about fellow writers living in the Big Apple.
    As you might imagine. his impressions were more like a poisoned apple—vicious. His editor
    had to do a lot of apologizing.
    My check for “Press Card” will be in the mail tomorrow. Looking forward to reading it.
    Stay safe, sane, and dry.

  3. HAPPY FRIDAY !!!
    Pallie,
    ( only a )couple things:
    1) Vince before Tony ? Is that because it’s “age before beauty “?😍
    2) Rainy days and the Post Office. Service comes with a smile out here in the boonies ! 😉
    3) With your beat up body. Can you use a back pack ? 👍
    4) Let’s see how good/bad the delivery system is with that heavy book ! 🤞
    stay well ( and dry )
    Tony

    1. How heavy can it be? It’s a paperback!😄

      A General Accountability Office (GAO) report found that USPS lost $69 billion over the previous 11 fiscal years—including $3.9 billion in fiscal year 2018. Then, a forecasted $6.6 billion loss turned into an $8.9 billion loss in 2019.Feb 20, 2021

      1. fresh out of sears’ catalogues. last phone book
        after that……
        corn cobs
        😒

  5. I received two Christmas cards, delivered by the sterling USPS, on February 7, 2021. The cards had been mailed from the Columbus, Ohio area on December 7 (as noted by the postmark). If the people in Ohio had simply tossed the cards onto the turnpike on December 7, I think the wind would have blown them to King of Prussia in a shorter period of time.

    If you REALLY wanna know who the REAL government duroks are (a Russian, not-very-nice word), it’s the toll takers on the PA Turnpike. Covid did us all a favor by putting them on ice.

    Can’t wait to see my book. Lotsa big words, I bet.

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