Post Office Blues

The mail system here in New Smyrna Beach brings to mind scenes from the classic Bukowski novel, Post Office. Some of the book’s characters left Los Angeles and now work in NSB, I believe. For the first ten or twelve days I was here, there was no incoming mail, and I never laid eyes on a mailman or woman.

Email is fine, but in some areas we still depend upon the postal services for particular un-emailable letters or forms. With my recent geographic shift, it’s natural that the postal systems would be a part of the shift, and leave me for the time being, semi-dependent on their mail delivery services. I’ve already received notice that two incoming payments were returned to the senders, and my tax-prep return documents also suffered the same fate.

When I finally managed to snag a postwoman down the road, she almost admitted that things were out-a-hand down there at the P.O. She quickly scribbled off a number to call for postal disorders. Well, there must be some magic in that number, because my mailbox got goosed and next morning gushed forth stacks of mail. “Lawdy, Lawdy, I been found!” I might have shouted. Bukowski would have described it as sub-normal.

I had a chat with a couple of my neighbors about the mail drag, and they both asked if my name was on the INSIDE of the box. That apparently is a key factor, because someone did stick my name up inside, I noticed when pulling out all the mail. Must have been the building manager.

So, it’s not all singing frogs and herb gardens around here. The small bumps and snags will pop up, and over at the post office I don’t expect anything to be like that semi-famous brag of theirs, “Neither snow nor rain….”