Friday, January 30, 2009

"I'll handle this, Violet. Why don't you take your three-hour break."

Newman: Oh, calm down everyone. No one's cancelling any mail.
Kramer: Oh, yes, I am.
Newman: What about your bills?
Kramer: The bank can pay 'em.
Newman: The bank. What about your cards and letters?
Kramer: E-mail, telephones, fax machines. Fedex, telex, telegrams, holograms.
Newman: All right, it's true! Of course nobody needs mail. What do you think, you're so clever for figuring that out? But you don't know the half of what goes on here. So just walk away, Kramer. I beg of you.

So I'm sure by now you've heard the red alert that the postmaster general wants to cut mail service down from 6 days a week to five. This news has been on par with the peanut paste thing. "Don't eat peanut paste! It's contaminated!" Thanks for that. I was consuming most of my peanut products in paste form. But apparently the post office could lose as much as $6 billion next year if they don't make the switch. Do you know how many postcard stamps that is?!

I think the 5-day service switch is a great idea because no one really appreciates the mail anymore. I bet the people waiting on the Pony Express to roll into town were pretty freakin' amped to see that Valpak.

According to the Associated Press, the post office needs to send about 9 billion more pieces of mail this year to meet its budget. If they let Bernie Madoff get involved to start those chain letters that we used to get in fourth grade, maybe people would be willing to go through a book of stamps to receive good fortune. If every American sent out 20 letters every week for 52 weeks, and the post office cut service to 5 days, plus holidays, and increased the price of the forever stamp, forever, I think the budget concerns would be a thing of the past.

Or maybe they should just start charging a fee to rent a pen at the post office. Because they never have pens there.

2 comments:

julie said...

what are you talking about!?!?!?!?!?! i LOVE the post office. mail either makes or breaks my day. i need my postcards from trista, netflix, and random packages from my mother containing stuff i can buy for myself.

i need it. and you know what i love more than mail? stamps. LOVE STAMPS. i'm actually very good for the post office because i buy stamps and then don't use them... that's a total win for the post office.

jessica. come back to new york. or or or or or or or or send me a postcard.

po box 250132, ny, ny 10025

you should be jealous. robo came up to the city and we all went out to lesley's slaywhore show. yeah, that's right. death metal, all-female style.

Jess said...

You are good for the postal service. I remember when we were neighbors on south campus you sent me a postcard in the mail that said, "Hi, can I borrow your car?"

robo at a death metal concert? I am jealous. My little sister had an idea for a band named WhoreMoney. It was mostly rap and slow jams, no Slayer, but still. They were going to tour with ice shows. "WhoreMoney on Ice."

If Lesley gets around to putting slaywhore on ice, I'd like to be there.