4/15: The Mail Must Not Go Through ... On JACKIE ROBINSON DAY
8:30 p.m.
• Why do I do this to myself? That’s right, because it’s funny as hell. So I decided to turn on “Baseball Tonight” and lo’ and behold who do I see on JACKIE ROBINSON DAY?
and
Oh yeah, this will be good.
I don’t know what I found to be funnier: the game highlights I saw where ESPN showed which players were wearing #42 on JACKIE ROBINSON DAY, or the stat they had featuring “black firsts” in baseball. What caught my eye wasn’t who was first black player, or the first black manager, or the first black general manager, or the first black umpire. It was the first all-black starting lineup, which, according to ESPN, was the 1971 Pirates. Wait a second, wasn’t Roberto Clemente, a Latino, a starter on that team? Time to go to my on-line baseball encyclopedia for an answer.
Fww76: question, was clemente a starter on the '71 pirates?
alkeiper: yes
Now what’s a dirty Latino player doing on a supposedly all-black lineup? (There were probably other Latinos on this team, but I don’t care.) You mean to tell me that in this one instance in honor of JACKIE ROBINSON DAY we’re lumping in black baseball players with Latinos? But yet in recent weeks I’ve had to hear about how there are only NINE PERCENT black ballplayers in Major League Baseball while disregarding the large amount of Latinos engaged in America’s National Pastime. So grouping blacks and other minorities when gathering baseball stats for a specific political agenda is bad every other day of the year except on JACKIE ROBINSON DAY? Gotcha. Oh my God: C.C. Sabathia had a good outing today and when Berman was talking with this player ESPN was showing his stats for the day, and on the line below this information it read, “on JACKIE ROBINSON DAY.” So it looked something like this:
IP 8, H 5, R 1, ER 1, BB 3, SO 10, HR 0, ERA 2.14
On JACKIE ROBINSON DAY
There’s a headline on MLB's home page that reads: “Sabathia does Jackie proud on special day.” Berman also used a similar line when the Twins’ Torii Hunter successfully slid into home. I’m surprised ESPN didn’t target those players who DIDN’T wear #42 today.
5:30 p.m.
• In a somewhat related story to this morning's entry, the people who live to the left of the rusty mailbox pictured below had their trash out on the curb Thursday for our Friday morning pickup. When I came home from work Thursday, I noticed their garbage can was knocked over, probably due to the high winds, and being the good neighbor that I am I went over to put it right-side up. It was then that I noticed they don't tie up their garbage bags that well, if at all. Upon further review, I realized that to them "garbage bag" means "plastic bag you get at the grocery store." What the fuck is wrong with people? Half the time my cats don't cover up their poop when they use the litter, but they're cats. Actually, Dessa and JJ often try to cover up their business by either clawing on the side of the litter box or by scratching the wall next to the litter boxes. And Max will use half the litter in one of their boxes to cover up his bathroom deposit, which means half of that litter used ends up on the floor. At least he tries.
8:30 a.m.
• Long story short. There’s this old guy who lives across the street from me. His wife died a few months ago, and due to health problems he has to use a walker. Because he’s unable to go out and get mail from his mailbox down by the edge of his yard, he arranged it with the post office so that a mailman (fuck using the term "postal carrier") would deliver it to the mailbox by his front door. Well of course several times already my mailbox has had letters addressed to this guy, but that’s not a big surprise. There have been times in the past where I’ve received letters from other people on the block in my mailbox, and my neighbors have received letters addressed to me in their mailboxes. Considering the amount of mail the post office deals with on a daily basis, I try to cut this organization some slack where I can (although there are a number of things that I do like to bitch about regarding this organization).
On Wednesday I normally receive some local discount publication called a PennySaver in my mailbox. For those that don’t know, a PennySaver is like one of those "free bargain circulars" you find at a grocery story or Wal-Mart where people can pimp their used goods for free or for a nominal fee. I don’t read this thing, but it always shows up in my mailbox on Wednesdays. This past Wednesday it didn’t. No biggie, I thought. Because Easter Sunday was a holiday, perhaps the post office is working a day late or something due to the volume of mail it got (it's happened before, and it's perfectly understandable). Besides, I normally don’t get anything in the mail on Wednesdays anyway besides that PennySaver. On Thursday there was no mail. OK, this is a little odd. Thursday is also a slow mail day, but to not get any letters asking me re-finance my mortgage for TWO DAYS in a row? Something’s fishy. Friday: Yep, no mail. Now something is up. I made plans to call the post office Monday and find out what’s going on; I’m not even going to try and sort this out with a person who’s working at the post office on a Saturday. Trust me, if you have an issue with your local mail provider, DO NOT put your hopes in the staff workers who are there on a Saturday. That's like going to a Quickie Mart in order to complain to the third-shift employee about the poor customer service you received earlier that day.
This morning, I asked the better half if we got any mail and she said “nope.” Great. When I went out to get my Sunday newspaper, I pick up the same publication for my other neighbor who is also unable to get her mail. (She’s the wife of the now deceased groundhog-killing neighbor.) As I went to get her paper to put it on her doorstep I figured what the hell and looked into the mailbox of this vacant house across from my residence to see if the mailman put my mail in this piece of shit.
Oh you got to be kidding me.
Not only was my mail in there from the past few days, but there were also several letters addressed to that old guy I talked about in the first paragraph of this entry. And this is what our tax money is going toward? Hell, these people want to INCREASE postage yet again in order to pay for their employee’s bloated salaries and health benefits. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “kkk, maybe all the mailboxes on your street look alike. Maybe someone stole your mail and put it there.” I’m squashing these possibilities right now. The numerals to my street address are “239.” I have lived at this place since 2004. My mailbox’s look and its location haven't changed during this time. Also, included in this stack of mail is another flyer-thingy that I get every Friday, which gets folded up a particular way so that it surrounds my other correspondence for that day, too. If someone would have went through my mail for that day, the flyer would have been all out of whack and I could have been able to tell that someone was looking through my stuff. Finally, a while back my groundhog-killing neighbors had trouble with their mail delivery and they were finding their postal correspondence in the same dilapidated mailbox. And just to show you the difference between where the mailman is supposed to deliver my mail and where this government worker actually ended up doing so, here is a picture of my mailbox.
I hope the “239” isn’t tough for you to find. I guess the fact there isn’t another mailbox next to mine because my neighbor is supposed to have his mail delivered to him at his doorstep is throwing off the government worker. Then again, it was the POST OFFICE who told my neighbor that if he wanted his "doorstep" service, then he would have to take down his curb-side mailbox. OK, now here’s the mailbox I found my most of my recent correspondence in, along with that of my semi-shut-in neighbor.
And they want us to pay, starting in May of this year, 41 cents for sending out a first-class letter.
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