Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I don't want this to be another of those "things just ain't the way they used to be" screeds, so I'm just going to say it is really one of those "things are different now, and maybe for the better" compositions.

It's about the mail, the US Mail, specifically, and what time it arrives. Yes, back in the good old days, most households could count on getting the Saturday Evening Post early on a Tuesday morning. The mail often arrived just about the time a golden English Muffin, done just ever so, popped up out of the toaster. I had a buddy who delivered in the Lutherville-Timonium P.O. (the "21093," in ZIP terms), and he had to be at work at 7 AM, out delivering by 9, and back again by 4PM. Rainy days and Mondays never got him down; he was out there in the rain, the cold, the snow, whatev, with his leather mail pouch and his can of dog repellent spray.

The past couple of years, we get our mail after dinner, and that means that at this time of the season, you'll see a mail truck nosing its way up and down our court with its headlights on. I can't even tell you how odd that sight is. It's like seeing your brain surgeon with a scalpel in one hand and a chicken wing in the other as he goes to work. Or seeing Justin Tucker miss a kick. And now and then, if I'm out by the mailbox, I'll talk to the carrier, and he or she always says they are filling in on our route after already completing their own.

You could order one of these and it will be delivered
in a truck that looks just like it!

Perhaps - and it's none of my business to tell the USPS how to do their job - they could hire a new letter carrier to carry our letters...

On the other hand, they have this system you can sign up for in which you get an email (at about the time the mail USED to arrive) that shows a little picture of the mail you will be getting much, much later that day.

Here's a free tip for restaurateurs: after diners give their orders to their servers, that person could text them photos of what their dinner is going to look like, when it arrives ten hours from now.

I have other business ideas, if anyone wants to hear them.

But don't get me wrong; I'm not out to pick on the mail people. I know they work hard and can take pride in their sense of responsibility. I say that because last Saturday, we went out to dinner and I put an outgoing letter in the box. When we came home around 8, the letter was there, so the mail did not come to our street that day.  Not the end of the world, but odd.

AND THEN, the next day, Sunday, around 1 o'clock, I heard a truck out in the street and joked that maybe it was the mail.  And it was! I'm guessing he had vehicle trouble or some such on Saturday and then came around on Sunday to deliver his route.

Maybe I should print this and mail it to the Postmaster General.