My Day Gets Even Better----Without mail access, perhaps for another ten days.

I lost my mail key a couple days after Christmas. I've been searching for it ever since, high and low. It's a locked set of mailboxes across the street I use. When I moved in, I had no idea even which box was mine and had to try the one mailbox key left in the house in all the boxes. I had no clue that box was owned by the post office and that I was supposed to go in when I first moved here and get a new set of keys and they'd change the lock. No clue. I"ve never had some fancy dandy down the street teensy set of locked boxes. Never wanted such either.

So today, I figured I'd have to hire a locksmith to open that box and make some new keys. But then I was telling someone about it and she said the post office owned the boxes in town and I'd have to go to them. I tried calling the post office then, but they have no working number.

So I went down. And I waited, and waited. Forty minutes in line. People were leaving, saying they were going to some other town's post office, that it would be quicker. It would have been quicker.

Finally I get to the counter and state my problem. I'm told I have to have proof I'm the renter here now, in the form of a landlord's lease, which I don't have. I told them I might have been able to bring something down had I been able to get ahold of them on the phone. The supervisor said they're running an efficient post office here in Albany and that's why they have those boxes, so the carrier can deliver faster. And, they have no working phone for the public to call them. Part of the efficiency, I suppose.

I looked at the long line of waiting customers. I don't think their service is efficient for customers. I didn't say this out loud, however.

The poor slob two in front of me, had, whiling away the long wait, told myself and others he could only cash his US postal service money order right here, at the Post Office, and nowhere else. So, when his turn came, he got told they didn't have enough money to cash it. When he said he couldn't cash it anywhere else, they waved him away. He wasn't happy. I don't blame him after that exceedingly long wait in line.

I'm told I'll have to come back Monday with proof and in the meantime, he said, he's going to have the carrier bring all my mail back to the post office and if I don't do something about this in ten days, he'll discontinue my postal delivery service. After I get them the proof, then it will be Friday before the lock can be changed, if I bring them proof Monday, and I might get keys next Friday. Might.

So I'll be without mail over two weeks. And I'll have to stand in that god awful line at least twice more. There's nothing easy or friendly anymore in this world.

Well how the hell am I supposed to know these things. I didn't know anything about that box. I still don't know how to use it to send off mail, like you could with the old boxes by putting up the flag. So I roam around with mail I need to send until I find an outgoing mailbox, usually in Jefferson.

If anybody out there sent me anything, besides bills, I don't have access anymore to mail and I don't know when I will. It's being held at the post office as of today. Right now, the box is empty. The supervisor told the mailman to get it all out and return it to the post office. And I won't be getting mail until I provide them proof I live there and the lock gets changed. Even if I find my key, won't do me any good now.

Well, I almost asked the mail supervisor if he'd ever watched Seinfeld. Then I would asked if he'd seen the episode where Kramer decided he didn't need to get mail, that who needs junk mail and he could pay his bills online. I wanted to then say, "What do you think about that?", with a twinkle in my eye, just to see what he would think about that.

I must admit, the idea of life without mail is enticing, just as is the thought of life without a ringing telephone. When my phone broke and my computer broke, too, I had the best two weeks of my life. I remember that time, with fondness. Just what can I live without and, in so doing, improve my life?

I like having a computer but I can live without one. I can do any business needs done on the PC once a day at the library or somewhere else. As for a phone, I just bought myself a new one, a $5 one, and guess what? The ringer can be turned off on it. The store clerk, who doesn't like being "always connected" either, went through every box, reading the manuels to see if any of the electronic or remote handset phones had ringers that could be turned off. None did. You could turn volume down, but not off.

So, I went for the old style $5 phone. You can turn the damn thing off. And, I got a cheap old message machine that has volume control that also can be turned off. My life will improve with these older cheaper gadgets.

I don't want to be always available. I'm not the connected type.

I'd shoot myself before I'd wear a bluetooth in my ear. They make me start giggling just to see people wearing them, like they need their cell phone use now like a tit to suck on.