Enotes

It sounds like the punch line of a Henny Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield joke. "Things are so bad, the mail is cutting back on delivery. Now they're going to take one less day a week to not get your stuff there on time." Sorry, USPS people, but I'm a little annoyed. The Postal Service wants to petition Congress to excise Saturday delivery , because of a---get this---$3.8 billion loss in the 2009 fiscal year. The USPS says it has already made $6 billion in cost-cutting measures, including lowering the payments it made for retiree health benefits by $4 billion in fiscal 2009. OK, I get why this is; people are simply not mailing as much stuff anymore. Bills are paid online or via phone. E-mail has made letter writing archaic and quaint to the point of weird. Seems that the only folks using the mail service anymore are those distributing junk. But if there are fewer pieces of mail, why are they taking longer to reach their destination? It's not just me. I've levied...

The Post Office is about to go out of business. Well, not exactly, but they're hurtin', for certain. The postmaster general says the mail folks are hemorrhaging money, and layoffs are in the offing. Unless, get this, we can go down to five days delivery per week. Now, the punch line. There's actual debate going on as to what day gets lopped off the schedule. Altogether now: SATURDAY...DUH!!! I wouldn't miss mail on Saturdays, not one iota. To be truthful, if it wasn't for the fact that as a freelancer I depend on the mail to deliver my checks, I wouldn't miss the mail at all. Not much good has been coming from the letter carrier these days. But to even vascillate over which day to NOT deliver mail? That seems kinda kooky, to me. Why on Earth would you consider any day OTHER than Saturday? You mean you'd actually consider a day during the work/business week? Now that's just plain nuts. Checks, as I mentioned, come in the mail, for those of us not adorned ...