5. US mail

I wrote a reference for a former student today. He wants to do an MA in War Studies. I had to take it to the Post Office. I had some stamps, but I wasn’t sure how much it weighed and indeed didn’t know the maximum weight for the standard letter to Europe. The queues, or lines as I should say, are always long in the week. But there is a little room straight off the street at the Post Office on Third and 55th (or thereabouts) where you can weigh the mail yourself and pay for it by debit card without any human contact, so I thought I’d give that a go.

I get to the place and see through the glass walls that one of the three machines is free, not even a line. But there is a dog tied by its lead to the door handle. I have never really liked dogs. I’m a cat man. But it was only a small one. A pug, I think, from my knowledge of the Rupert Bear books, not really like Algy Pug, more anxious, smaller, more the size of Pong-Ping the Pekinese, and black and white, but near enough for me to call him son of Algy. I tentatively lean across to pull the door gently towards me and son of Algy having less than two feet of rein, so to speak, immediately scoots through the door and inside the Post Office, or as far as he can, which is about two feet. I pull the door a bit wider and son of Algy is dragged back and then decides to use his limbs to move in my direction and let me inside. I sense that someone else behind me held the door as I slid through.

I lost sight and sound of son of Algy for a while. It was fairly easy to weigh the letter, push a few touch-screen buttons and discover, mercifully, I had the right amount in stamps. So I decide to exit and find a post box. Then I am stopped in my tracks by a booming and … I think the term is strident, if that does not contradict ‘booming’, voice. A woman, I sensed.

“Is that your dog? That dog does NOT belong tied to the front door of a PUBLIC Post Office. You cannot do that!”

I turn round, no one in sight, she is obviously not talking to me, because the voice is coming from the inner room of the ground floor office.

“You can NOT do that, the dog’s nearly strangled itself, twice!”

I can’t hear a response, but a lady emerges from the inner office, head bowed as if in shame, opens the door and starts feverishly to release son of Algy from his door handle. She is followed by someone who reminds me of Dorothy of the Golden Girls for her size and demeanour. Golden Girls is on cable TV for an hour every night at six. One of the better programmes. One featured dizzy Rose as a volunteer dummy for local firemen’s first aid class. At the thought of mouth-to-mouth ressuscitation Blanche turned green. Did you ever see that one? But I digress.

Dorothy repeats her imprecations as son of Algy and owner exit stage right. A man is holding the door on the outside and says to Dorothy: “Are you finished?” in a surprisingly soft and mild manner, I thought, so not as a reproach but maybe as a genuine question. Maybe her husband.

“No, I’m not, I gotta go back in,” say Dorothy frustratedly, “I had to bawl out that woman. Did you ever see such a moron? Tying a dawg to the front door of a Post Office. She’s pregnant too.”

I hadn’t noticed. Or perhaps she meant son of Algy, in which case it would have been daughter of Algy. The dog didn’t look pregnant to me. But would I notice?

“Would she do that to a child!?” she adds, still incredulous.

Hmm, I ponder the proposition. Is it likely she would put a leather leash round a child’s neck and tie it to a door on a main street in Manhattan, while she went into a shop, indeed a public Post Office. No, on the basis of this one example of her behaviour, I don’t think we can necessarily make that inference. For one thing, I imagine children are not banned from Post Offices here. Or perhaps they are.

“I’ve never SEEN such a moron!”

You should get out more, luv. In “Sex in the city”, it’s called multitasking. But it’s a good job Bill Badger didn’t come on the scene. “Sex in the city” is on cable TV every night too, later than Golden Girls. I wonder if Rupert is on the Children’s Channel?

I exit and enter another door to take the escalator up to the main Post Office, passing the splendid plaster of Paris busts US Mail has bought or commissioned. I can’t imagine the Royal Mail or whatever it’s called these days – Letters ‘R Us? – doing anything similar. (By the way NEVER use the Royal Mail redirection “service”, but that’s another story.)

I look for the post box that seems to be the one that takes most types of mail, since you come across so many interdictions on some of the boxes that you don’t know what to put in where. There is a new, large, capitalised notice above it.

“EFFECTIVE FROM APRIL 1, 2004
MAIL MUST BE DEPOSITED BY 7.O PM
FOR SAME DAY CANCELLATION.”

I say ”new” but it may be the last line only that is new, it is in a different type. It makes me hesitate before offering up the student reference, wanting to avoid it being cancelled. I read it again. “Effective from April 1, 2004”, well that certainly means it’s effective now, so I must be careful. Mail must be deposited by 7 pm. It’s not yet mid-day so it could certainly affect the letter I’m about to drop in. “For same day cancellation”. Hmm, can it mean that if you put a letter in the box you can change your mind and stop it going up to 7 pm? If impulse-buying habits are spreading to letter writing, that might occasionally be useful, but surely not? It must be another Americanism. “Cancellation”, I conclude, must mean something like franked or just sent. I drop in the letter, weighing up the odds, which I decide are more in my favour than not.

It’s rather like the “Post no bills” notice I saw soon after arriving. I was behind a post box on a hoarding. I was about to drop in a cheque to pay off a Barclaycard bill and had to reason myself through it to make sure I wasn’t about to do something I’d regret.

Before leaving the Post Office, I look across to the line that snakes left and right in front of the counters. I was wise not to try that. People are still walking as slowly as Edward Trunk from the front of the line when they are indicated to go to a free counter, and they may have to go 20 yards to the left or 15 yards to the right depending which one is free. I do find that Noo Yoikers walk slowly in the street, but they all eat so fast, in restaurants. Perhaps the two things are related. But which came first, the chicken or the triple egg sunny side up? It’s rather like wondering what on earth are boneless buffalo wings. I’ve never dared ask, it’s just one of those questions that gnaw away at you, but you know it’ll really show you up if you blurt it out in company.