Junk Mail from the USPS

     A few days ago we received in our P.O. Box 2, Oysterville, Washington 98641 mailbox, a spiffy mailer from the United States Postal Service saying “Don’t go to the Post Office.”  Enclosed in this eye-catching red, white, and blue container was a CD urging us to buy our stamps online at wwwstampsdotcom.
     I haven’t checked with the other postal patrons but I suspect that this was a bulk mailing that went to all of us box holders in Oysterville.  For all I know these slick (and no doubt spendy) little marketing mailers went to every box holder in the country.  Nyel says we’ve received them before and he, considering them to be junk mail, has tossed them out.
     Out of curiosity, I inserted the CD into my computer to see what it was all about.  Wouldn’t you know, I immediately got one of those “This program cannot display the webpage” messages.  It gave me the “Most likely causes,” none of which applied, and told me “What you can try,” none of which worked.
     So, I went directly to the stamps.com website and found that for $15.99 a month, I can register to do all sorts of wonderful postal stuff from the comfort of my own home.  No need to go to the post office at all, it seems.  Oh, yes, except to get our mail.  And maybe to mail something as well.
     At that point, I turned off my computer and marched up to the Post Office to buy stamps for my Christmas cards.  Online  buying  indeed!!  Here we are in the midst of trying to save our historic Post Office from threatened closure – closure, I might add that is based largely on bottom line figures that show too little revenue – and we are being actively discouraged from giving it our patronage!
     Obviously, it’s one of those right-hand-doesn’t-know situations.  In the vast corporate world of the United States Postal Service, bulk mailings are bulk mailings.  There is probably no thought of separating out certain items for the sake of sensibilities.  All those clichés like “adding insult to injury” and “rubbing salt into the wound” and “what are we chopped liver?” are the sugarplums that dance through my head as December 14^th, The Day of Closure Decision, marches ever closer.
     Even worse is the realization that “the handwriting is on the wall” and “it’s probably a done deal.”  Not only is the U.S.P.S. “gearing up for the inevitable,” it is setting us up to become the biggest “part of the problem.”  It seems that at least one familiar and once reassuring cliché will soon be history – “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”  Humph!