June 26, 2010

       Every so often, I see a story in the paper bemoaning the impending doom of the Postal Service:  they're going to have to cut home mail delivery from six days a week to five, maybe even four.  But the last time I read one of those, I stopped in the middle and thought, well, why not?  The country has changed;  shouldn't the Postal Service change with it?      When I was young, away at school, away in the Army, I wrote letters to my friends and parents, put them in an envelope, stamped them and mailed them.  I'm so old I can remember when all it cost was one three-cent stamp.  What I can't remember is the last time I did that.      What I get in the mail, and what I bet you get, is ads and bills.  The ads, now as inevitable as death and taxes, are junk.  I throw them away.  The bills I pay, like most of us I suspect, once a month.  Friends?  There are phone calls sometimes, but usually they e-mail.  I have one friend in Canada who used paper until recently.   I e-mailed an answer, saying that it was just much easier for me.  Now she's switched too.         And it is easier, of course.  Sit at the computer, write a letter, hit "send" and that's it.  No trip to post office for stamps, no searches for envelopes, no checking the mail box, and so on. The important mail I get is the bills. They come once a month;  I pay them once a month.  If the Postal Service delivered them once a week, or twice a week, would I care?  Not a bit.  I might even switch to e-bills and save a tree or two.        Postal Service, times have changed.  Maybe you should too.  You can still make your appointed rounds through rain and sleet and snow and gloom of night...just not every day.  
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