Quote of the Day: Nikos Kazantzakis

"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free."





I think my mail-lady may be the reason that going crazy is sometimes referred to as "going postal." ( I say that with all due respect to most post office workers, especially my grandma, who delivered mail for many years and may be reading this post as we speak.)

I knew she was going to be trouble when I moved into my new apartment six months ago because the first week there I got piles and piles of mail for other people and none for myself even though I was having my mail forwarded through the proper Post Office channels. There was so much of this stuff that I would have thrown it away in clear conscience if Stacey would have let me. I mean we are talking full shopping carts loads here. I guess it is a good thing that I didn't act on my strong moral belief that someone too lazy to fill out a change-of-address form in the the past six months did not deserve their mail because two of the former tenants are very dependent on government aid that I am sure would have been missed if it had been thrown away.

About a week after I moved in, I found an angry post-it note on my mailbox telling me to change the name on it or my mail would no longer be delivered. I had no choice but to put up a handwritten nameplate that the landlord eventually replaced with a real one that was legible.

We repeated that process after we got married when she refused to deliver Stacey's mail because her name was not on the box.

So life went on like that with us dutifully forwarding a bunch of strangers' mail until one day we found that a huge batch of it had been shoved back in our mailbox and that someone had attached a hand-written sign to the outgoing mailbox telling us not to put mail in that mailbox because it was not a proper mail drop.

Considering all those issues, you can see why I was excited to talk to her when I finally ran into her in person the other day. I started out pleasantly enough. "Hello? Excuse me, can you tell me whose names you have on my mailbox?"

She listed for names off so I asked to get rid of the ones that did not belong to me and Stacey.

She stopped what she was doing and looked at me with fire in her eyes. "I need a forwarding address."

"I don't know what it is. Sorry."

"You better get one then."

"I don't know those people. They lived here before me."

"All right, but this is not how it's normally done.

"Sorry."

"I don't know what it is about you guys in that apartment. You guys just have a very transient lifestyle, I guess."

"Look, I haven't live there with anyone but my wife and I've been there six months. I don't know ___ and ____. All I know is I don't want to get their mail any more."

"And another thing. That mailbox is not legal."

"I didn't put it up." I said as I walked out the door and heard her slam the bank of mailboxes shut with a significant amount of force.

I sure hope she thinks transients are worthy of mail this week because I am expecting a few birthday books.