Column: Something About Nothing

I love my mailwoman. She delivers my mail through sleet and snow and pouring rain. She always has a smile on her face and a friendly hello. My mail is always in the mailbox at a certain time every day. I would miss her visits if the mail service changed. Receiving my mail is a vital part of my day.

Yes, there are the bills that are delivered. I still prefer paper over electronic because I have had electronic mail get lost or go into a junk mail box somewhere never to be seen by me.

It has happened to me more electronically than it has happened with the U.S. Postal Service. If my electronic mail does not hit my inbox, there are consequences. Late fees get applied to my bill, and it takes a lot of time to dispute them. I trust regular mail more than my electronic mail.

I do pay some of my bills online. However, I use the U.S. mail almost every single day. We all know the Postal Service is having problems and is cutting back. My opinion and possibly my opinion only is that I feel the Postal Service worked better before they were so automated.

We used to have two slots in our post office to mail letters. One was for sending mail within our community and one was for sending mail out of town. The mail for our community never left our town.

Now the mail I send to my neighbor gets shipped to Mankato and then back to Wells. That has never made sense to me, but then I have never been known to be a sensible person.

When my son first moved to Ankeny, Iowa, it didn’t take long for mail to get to them or for their mail to get to me. The U.S. Postal Service then closed a post office somewhere and rerouted the mail differently. The time it took for us to receive mail increased by a few days. I inquired and they told me they were streamlining services to make it more efficient. Their meaning of efficiency is different than my meaning apparently. It is frustrating that the speed has slowed down with adding technology. Isn’t technology supposed to be faster?

Simplify and add humans instead of machines and perhaps the time and speed would improve. But what do I know? I do not know all the little intricacies of the postal system.

I feel closing more post offices will slow the mail even more, and that seems to be one of the main complaints about the Postal Service. Closing post offices and slowing mail will perhaps drive consumers to alternatives faster.

I also like junk mail.

Let me clarify that statement. If I have to receive advertising solicitation I would rather it be by mail then by telephone.

It is easier to sort through my junk mail and toss it or shred it than it is listen to the bleat of the phone and hang up on the telemarketers. I try to remember that telemarketers are people, too, and only trying to earn a living. I try not to take my frustration out on them but occasionally I want to slam the phone down, crush it with my foot and yell things I should not be yelling.

Yes, I love my mailwoman. I also love Mr. Mike, my UPS man. They take care of me. They see that I get the goods when I need it, and in as fast a manner as their job allows them to deliver it to me. I want to keep the Postal Service in business. In our lives we never seem to realize what we have until it is gone.

This week I mailed cards to my friends, my relatives and I mailed my bills. I am going to continue to mail cards on a more regular basis for friendship, thank yous, and just because I want to send some fun to my friends and family. I am going to support the U.S. Postal Service and perhaps add a few smiles on the way.

I challenge you this week to take the time to send cards by mail to friends and family. Give them the gift of love and give the U.S. Postal Service your business. We need our mail people. Send mail.

“Every once in a while, someone will mail me a single popcorn kernel that didn’t pop. I’ll get out a fresh kernel, tape it to a piece of paper and mail it back to them.” — Orville Redenbacher

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.