Going Postal - Again

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I have been waiting for some time for the other shoe to drop, at least metaphorically speaking, when it comes to Saturday postal delivery. I was just a little embarrassed to discover that I have written three separate posts about this dire consequence of the fiscal crunch. The one that has been going on for the past four years, if you are using my opinions as a measuring tape. But guess what? We don't have to worry about not getting the ACE Hardware circular in your mailbox for a few more Saturdays because Congress passed legislation on Thursday requiring six-day delivery.
Does Congress know that the Post Office lost sixteen billion dollars last year, and cutting delivery back to five days would save two billion dollars annually? Sure they do, but you know what lively pranksters those legislators are. Their side bet on the matter is this: You won't get first class mail on Saturday. That will be the way to work around the trouble. It has been estimated that the Postal Service could run out of money as soon as October unless some sort of bailout can be arranged. They USPS loses twenty-five million dollars each day. The vast majority of these losses come from heavy mandatory payments into its future retirees' health fund. And the vast sea of Americans who now communicate electronically.
Perhaps if I changed the way I disseminate my thoughts to include a postal element. I could print out a few hundred of these little missives along with my regularly scheduled cybercast and stick them in the mail. A few hundred stamps a week might save the post office up the street from becoming another Starbuck's. All those random thoughts that become one-line e-mails? Those could be hand delivered to the lucky individual for whom it was intended instead of waiting in that cold and sterile environment of the In Box.
Or I can keep hiking out to the mailbox and waiting for the end, mercifully, to come.