The United States Postal Service has generally been good to me, but like any huge organization there have been instances where they fell short. There are times when you can get a media rate package from Maine to California in three days, and others where it takes two weeks to get the same size parcel to New Hampshire.
About ten years ago, there was a spate of really slow deliveries, packages and letters that came to me several weeks late. I had one first class letter take almost a month to reach me, and it irked me. During this slowdown, I wrote this little piece of poetry to vent my frustration.
They sit there laughing
as you try so hard
to get an answer.
Perched atop piles of
unanswered letters
they refuse to forward.
They shake your hand
take your money,
then spend it against your soul.
All the while smiling
a sickening pasty smile
white fangs waiting to dig in.
Prices go up, quality goes down,
the process speeds to a slow.
Yet nobody seems to care anymore,
for they've found something better.
A trick of technology,
or a slide outside of society.
Either way, they've no use
for the mediums of yesterday.
The quality of life,
does it ever get better?
Perhaps for those in the system.
They're set for life
living off your hard toil,
while you're stuck waiting
for undelivered correspondence,
they're supposed to handle.
The civil servants work so hard,
milling about in blue coats.
In lieu of their labor,
they light their cigarettes
from burning stacks of sedentary letters
we will never get.
Dear Mr. Postman,
Don't shred my mail in retaliation for this cynical poem! I only bring it up because I've had an Amazon package sitting in a Massachusetts processing depot for an entire week, untouched. Its "estimated" delivery was last Friday, and it's annoying to wait still longer for this particular item, so this poetry piece seemed appropriate. Yes, I know the holidays are a busy time of year, but the thing hasn't moved for 7 full days, and it's only a few hundred miles away. Could we get it on the truck sometime in the next couple of days, please?
Sincerely,
Martin T. Ingham
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