The USPS’ Softer Side
At least one Manhattan letter carrier apparently believes in being kind to the elderly.
My wife’s eccentric aunt, who resides in an assisted-living home in New York, is too hearing-impaired to contact effectively on the phone and has no e-mail account.
So we communicate with her the old-fashioned way — by letter.
Apparently, Aunt Margaret still has some old 41-cent stamps lying around, but no 1-centers to make up the difference. Her solution? Tape a penny next to the stamp on the envelope, as she’s done on her last two letters.
How do we know this? Both letters arrived with the pennies still attached, complete with cancellation marks across the stamps and the tape securing the pennies to the envelopes.
We suspected the first one was an oversight on the part of the post office. Since receiving the second, however, we’ve begun to believe some individual or individuals at the USPS in Manhattan are being kind to a sweet old lady.
When I called our local post office to investigate how the penny-laden letters were delivered intact, an employee told me, “[Our local letter carrier] Eric’s philosophy is if it made it this far, it should go all the way.”
Not wanting to get anyone in trouble, I decided not to call the post office in Aunt Margaret’s neighborhood to dig any further.
But to whomever picks up Aunt Margaret’s mail, I would like to say: Thank you. Your kindness has not gone unnoticed.
I also think it’s probably time my wife and I bought Aunt Margaret a roll of 42-cent stamps and some 1-centers to help her use the old 41-cent stamps properly.
