What is going on with the mail? I feel as if we’d be doing better if they’d resurrect the Pony Express.
For starters, my mail doesn’t come till sundown. The mailman, who looks like he stops off for a couple of quick ones, stumbles in placing the mail in all the wrong boxes.
This needed to be addressed, as it were.
Tact Susannah, be tactful when you tell him you are not Victor Sanchez who doesn’t even reside in our building.
“Hi, how are ya?” I said, when he came at 7 p.m. “looks like you’re having a long day.”
He looked at me like I was a dog in the yard he had to keep an eye on.
“Is there a reason we’re getting our mail this late?” Again, no response. I watched him leave a good 20 pieces on the radiator below the boxes. He didn’t even bother putting them in. Okay, maybe this isn’t one of those times I should be Mother Teresa, though I bet she’d say, hey, do your job buddy like the rest of us.
“I’m talking to you sir…me, over here?”
“Lady can’t you see I’m tired? I need to go home.”
“I get that, but why are you delivering at this hour? We’re supposed to get our mail no later than 3. I have a right to ask you know. I live here.”
“I’m just not as fast as I used to be.” he said, before shuffling out the door.”
I want to say I was mad, but exasperated was more like it. He did look beat even though he wasn’t that old, and something told me I just didn’t know the whole story.
The big question…
am I going to march to the post office to place a complaint, or sit on it for a while to see if more will be revealed. I uncharacteristically chose the latter.
Cut to – 3 days later in the pouring rain. There he is again, late in the afternoon soaked to the bone. I ran over to him with my massive umbrella that belongs over a picnic table.
“You’re going to catch cold being wet that way,” I said holding my umbrella over the both of us. I tried following him so he’d stay beneath it but he seemed oblivious to me, my umbrella and the rain.
“I like this weather,” he finally said, “I can cry and nobody notices.”
I knew it. There was something else going on here. I asked him what it was but he went mute once again and kept going up the avenue.
Next day, I did go to the post office, but not to complain. I went to talk to a woman there I’ve known for years. This is what she told me.
Bob, I’ll call him, has been a mailman for over 25 years. He has a wife and 3 children, two being active addicts. The third one has some chronic disease and lives at home. Bob’s taken on more hours because he supports them all and is worried either those hours will get cut or the powers that be will force him into retirement.
I heard all this with a heavy heart. The poor guy. Of course there are no victims just volunteers, as they say, but I still felt for him. Suddenly I didn’t give a shit what time my mail came. It was also a crucial lesson that every picture does not always tell a story. Sometimes it pays to research the sub-plot.
Next time we met I asked how he was and was there anything I could do to help him.
“No, no,” he said, “but if you hold on I’ll hand you your mail. What’s the name?”
“Bianchi, Susannah Bianchi.”
“Bianchi, does she live here?”
“Yes, she does.” He gave me a confused look.
“With who?” I let out a rather loud sigh.
“Victor Sanchez.”
He gave me our mail.
SB
