Please Mr. Postman

In these days of being cooped up at home, there is at least one thing we can look forward to (or should be able to): that little click/boop when a mail carrier deposits the latest who-knows-what in our mailboxes.

But Covid has played yet another nasty trick on us — so many postal carriers have been laid low by the virus that we can no longer depend on the mail being delivered daily, or at a reasonable time.

In the good old days, we could generally count on the day’s mail to arrive by mid-afternoon. Now it can come as late as 6 p.m. — if it’s delivered at all. Some days we’re shut out completely. Not even any junk mail.

But what’s worse these days, lo these terrible days, is now the USPS, more than ever before, is losing our mail or sending it back marked “return to sender” — even if was properly addressed.

Cue to Elvis singing:

“Return to sender, address unknown

No such number, no such zone.”

Case in point: a Christmas/New Year’s card we had mailed to my wife’s sister in New York City from our New Haven home in late December was returned to us a couple of weeks later, marked, you guessed it, “return to sender.” I studied the address we’d written and double-checked it; the address was correct. And so I put the card in another envelope, slapped on another stamp and took my chances that this time it might be delivered. (It was. Hallelujah!)

Case in point: every year my sister in Tennessee sends out a Thanksgiving card. This is a very big deal for her, the equivalent of Christmas cards for other senders. Well, Thanksgiving came and went. No card from sister Anne. Finally I asked her about it. She said she’d sent it in early November, well before Thanksgiving. So she sent me another one. This time, success. Hey, USPS! Batting .500! Way to go!

Case in point: my brother and his wife sent their Christmas card to us circa Dec. 19 or 20 from their home in Bethesda, Md., near Washington, D.C. It never made it here. Christmas came and went; New Year’s Day came and went. Nada. When I at last asked him about it, because creating that card is a big deal for his family, he said oh yeah, he had indeed mailed it to us.

And so he mailed another one. The USPS is making lots of money on second stamps, eh? This one made it to us. There’s that .500 batting average, holding steady. But this isn’t baseball. We do expect a higher batting average, don’t we, when we’re paying more and more for postage stamps?

And please don’t tell me to email “electronic” holiday cards. They just aren’t the same. I need to hold it in my hands, put it on our refrigerator, look at it.

Case in point: a neighbor of ours also got his card to a friend mailed back, marked “return to sender.” He contacted his friend and said: “You must have moved. What’s your new address?” His friend replied, “I haven’t moved.” D’oh!

Of course there are more important items than cards we entrust the USPS to deliver. Medications. Social Security checks. Those little incidentals.

And get a load of this: a few weeks ago when I checked my mailbox, some of the envelopes weren’t even in the box. They were lying on the ground beneath said box.

I checked in with a friend of mine in Hamden, who has the seasonal name Carol Christmas. She’s a retired USPS worker. When I asked her what’s going on here, she emailed me this: “The carriers have been out there since the beginning of the pandemic, going to every door across the country. Many have gotten sick. Some have died. When exposed, the carrier has to quarantine, leaving the route to whomever has to pick up the slack. The work force is unstable. Substitutes don’t know the routes like the regular carriers, and that may explain why the mail is so erratic.

“Secondly, in my experience, the USPS has never been run very well. And Covid has only exacerbated the chaos that is the ‘whip the dogs harder’ management style. The carrier can’t be more efficient than the management will allow.”

My friend Christmas added: “A former co-worker said this past holiday season was the worst ever. New hires are required to work seven days per week, often 12 hours per day. And Covid has created huge understaffing issues.”

She added, “And then there’s that horrible Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who doesn’t want the industry to succeed, so he can privatize it.”

The Washington Post recently examined the delivery problems experienced by residents in the D.C. area. Julia Miller said she didn’t receive any mail from Dec. 30 to Jan. 9. A birthday card from her mother, who lives across town in Washington, took three weeks to arrive.

Miller said: “It is disappointing that this is happening in the United States of America.”

The Post quoted an American Postal Workers Union official saying more than 250 postal employees in D.C. were let go near the end of the year. Officials said similar layoffs have occurred across the country.

The union official said this was the USPS’ explanation: “There’s a lack of work.”

What???

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton told the Post her office in D.C. has received more than 100 complaints about the Postal Service.

“The solution is to give the Post Office more money,” she said. “It is the most important service. They have to service every single household in the country.”

Holmes said about DeJoy, who has been widely criticized for a plan that would slow delivery times and raise prices: “He has to go.”

Hey everybody, remember that motto and mission of the USPS? It proclaims this: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Tape that onto DeJoy’s wall.

I’m not writing this to slam postal carriers, most of whom continue to do good and even brave work under terrible, often unsafe conditions. But I have to say that in addition to “Return to Sender,” there’s another song echoing through my brain pan these days: “Please Mr. Postman,” originally sung by the Marvelettes in the early ‘60s. (The Beatles did a nice cover song of it and then the Carpenters attempted it. Although the Carpenters came out of my town of New Haven, I rate their version in last place.)

Dig these lyrics:

“Please Mr. Postman, look and see

If there’s a letter in your bag for me.

Why’s it taking such a long time

For me to hear from that boy of mine.

I’ve been standin’ here waitin,’ Mr. Postman

So patiently

For just a card, or just a letter…”

So many days you passed me by.

See the tears standin’ in my eyes.

You didn’t stop to make me feel better

By leavin’ me a card or a letter.”

The Marvelettes were way ahead of their time.

In those good old days, we knew our mail carrier. He was the same reliable, friendly guy every day. But now we never know what individual we will see dropping off the mail (if anybody). It’s an ever-changing cast.

As I write this, at 4:45 p.m. on Thursday, you guessed it, no mail yet. Will it finally arrive by 6 p.m.? Who knows?

P.S. Thursday’s mail did show up, at 5:55 p.m. I looked out my window and spotted a carrier slipping the envelopes into the box via flashlight because it was so dark by then. Way to go, USPS! Better late than never, eh?