Wait! Wait a minute Mr.Postman…please, Mr. Postman

 By Larry Cohen, c. 2026

As communications technology advances at lightning speed all around us, I took a moment to examine our amazingly efficient postal service while I was waiting for a routine dental appointment last week. The weather being decent, I waited outside rather than in the stuffy and outdated waiting room. Outside his office was a mailbox, a simple blue standalone USPS mailbox.  While I was looking at it, a mail truck pulled up, and the mailman got out holding a plastic collection box and, with his key on a long chain, opened the mailbox, exchanged collection boxes, and went on his way.  There was nothing strange nor out of the ordinary about this commonplace occurrence.

Yet it dawned on me that with an International postage stamp on a postcard, from that very mailbox, I could send that postcard anywhere in the World. In this era of the Internet and cell phones, that should be no great trick. Yet, we still have governments that like to turn on (and turn off) the Internet as they deem fit, as well as control over cell phone tower service.  Of course, that message on the postcard will not reach its intended recipient in under 22 seconds the way an email would, but it will eventually arrive.

During the Cold War period with the Iron Curtain countries, our spies knew to always carry local postage stamps with them, enough for an international postcard to reach its destination.  On occasion, the postcard was the only way one would know if the spy was dead or alive.  Despite the old joke that it takes longer for a postcard to arrive than a letter (the mailman reads the cards on their routes), it’s not true. The mailman couldn’t care less what is written on a postcard.  Just ask your local mailman this question. Then again, better not.

Here in my city, many of the USPS postal mailboxes have been removed.  I do not know the reason for this but it must have happened over the past two decades.  And, these days, all First Class letters are photographed before they are delivered.  This is a security measure.  This makes overnight service to areas even within my own Zip Code, even for service just across the street,  an impossibility.  The Zip Code, introduced in the 1960’s should have made delivery faster, not slower, but it has not.  Further, if anyone knows their own Zip Code as well as those “plus four” numbers, for a total of 9 numbers, they must have a “thing” for numbers.  I do not have a thing for numbers.

With all of the above duly noted, if you really want to surprise your friends these days, send them a handwritten card or letter.  It’s nice to get something in the mail that is not from a bank, utility company, or some organization that you’ve never heard of requesting a donation.