Sunday, August 16, 2009

Say Goodbye to Saturday Mail Delivery

Bob Greene, writing an online column for CNN, reports today that Saturday mail delivery may become a thing of the past. I haven't seen any other articles on the subject but Bob says they were lost amidst the more urgent news that's been happening this summer...Michael Jackson's death, the showering of a baseball player with beer, all of that stuff.

For the moment, I'll take Bob's column as fact because it gives me something to blog about.

Frankly, I think he gets all misty-eyed sometimes just to be able to write about getting misty-eyed. He talks about the "giddy anticipation of seeing the mail carrier strolling up the sidewalk" as though he was back in the malt shop at college waiting to run back to the dorm and see if he's gotten a letter from home.

"Giddy" isn't a way I would describe waiting for my mail. At least not since the box has been routinely filled with catalogs, bills and solicitations from charities like Mercy Home that should be taking the money they spend on mail solicitations and using it to feed and house their kids.

Every day, I take at least ninety percent of my mail straight from the box to the recycling bin.

The U.S. Postal Service is a huge, clunky governmental bureaucracy that's hemorrhaging money. . . $7 billion this year, if Greene's facts are correct. If eliminating Saturday deliveries will cut $3 billion of that, go for it.

In fact, how about mail-less Mondays, too?

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