[Anthony S.]

Verbatim conversation with my mail person right around 5pm today (she was closing my mailbox as I walked up):

ME: "Do I have have any packages today?"

HER (walking away): "Nope."

ME: "Are you sure?"

HER (still walking): "Yes."

ME (calling after her): "The reason why I ask is because I noticed on the website that I had a package out for delivery."

Moment of doubt on her part -- there's a website? She steels herself.

HER (reaching into her pouch to show me how very wrong I am): "You don't have any packag......wait, you have four."

Four packages.

As she starts to beep the packages with the 1963 Kennedy space program prototype scanner that never works for any mail person until he/she starts to bargain with it, because it's a scanner made almost entirely out of duct-tape and hope, another mailman walks up and informs her that she's working the wrong route today.

So she stops scanning.

HER (to the other mailman, because now I'm in a Marx Brothers skit): "Really, are you sure?"

HIM: "Yes, this is 1400 block."

ME (pointing at my address): "Actually, it's the 1500 block."

HER (to the other mailman, and is he really a mailman? -- he's wearing blue, but that's the only positive identifier) : "I'm not supposed to work the 1400 block?"

ME (tapping the address above the gate, because I'm tall): "It's the 1500 block."

HIM (to her): "No, you're not." (conciliatory, and sensing an opportunity to shirk) "Do you want to?"


I had the best mailman up until about 3 weeks ago. The guy was awesome. Then I received a notice in the mail informing me that the USPS was re-evaluating the postal routes in my area, in order to better serve the community. Since then, it's been an absolute shit-show. I'm literally expecting to find letters nailed to the tree out front.