Postal Service

Entry to:

1332751

Make Me Laugh HOLIDAY Shorts Contest  [18+] Mother's Day round now open for entries! by Shannon

Wayne and Clarise moved into their dream home – a brand new house, in a brand new district. They sent their new address to all their friends, and of course, their creditors. It didn't matter that they would never have home postal service, as the scatter boxes would be close enough that the young couple could walk, to pick up their mail. But the new post boxes were not yet installed, so they had to pick up their mail at General Delivery, in the main post office – a minor and temporary inconvenience.

Wayne went to General Delivery three times weekly, to pick up their mail. Being an accountant, he was precise and structured. On one visit, there was no mail to retrieve – unusual, but not impossible. On his next visit, there was no mail – this was getting curious. His third visit that week still produced no mail – this was starting to border on the impossible.

So Wayne phoned the post office to see if there was a problem. "Your district is serviced by scatter boxes, provided free of charge by your Postal Service." Replied the representative of the postal service (definitely an oxymoron

adjoining words having opposite meanings

), as if he were reading from the Postal Service Orientation Manual.

Wayne commented, "We haven't been given scatter boxes yet, so we have to use your General Delivery Service."

After some checking, the "customer service" representative continued with his robotic responses, "Our records indicate that we installed scatter boxes there over a week ago, actually Tuesday of last week, to be precise. Your mail is being delivered to your personal post box, located within a short walk from your home."

"How can that be?" Wayne questioned. "We haven't been assigned a box. I don't even have a lock and key for a box."

"If there is no lock on the personal post box, the carrier holds the mail until a lock has been installed by the owner, at the owner's expense." The representative had every section of the manual memorized, and he had obviously been trained on how to deal with "difficult" customers.

Wayne was getting agitated, as he scolded, "Don't you think you should have let me know that you installed our post box?"

The semi-efficient postal worker responded, "We did notify you, as soon as we installed the new postal boxes."

"How did you notify me?" asked Wayne, feeling confused.

The proud employee responded from the heart, rather than from the manual, "Why, by mail, of course."

(411 words)