Weekends without worries

The United States Postal Service recently announced that it may have to curtail Saturday deliveries as it is losing billions of dollars. You would still be able to pick up mail at the post office.

This is a step back in time, almost to the 1890s, when widespread rural mail delivery began. Prior to that, everyone went to the post office to pick up their own mail. That wasn't too bad if you lived near the post office, but some people didn't pick up their mail for weeks or months as they did it when they went to town for supplies from almost self-sufficient farms.

How will this affect us today? Very little, I believe. I see a rise in phone calls to the post office coming on Saturday morning asking if they have received mail and, perhaps, longer lines at the post office.

As for me, I get most of what came by mail in other ways now. Most of my utility and other bills come via e-mail and regularly recurring checks go directly to the bank. I even get more "junk mail" across the Internet than I get in my mailbox, which I think is a good thing because hitting the "delete" key is a lot less laborious than taking out the wastebasket.

The one thing I will miss is The Brazil Times' Saturday edition, but I can read that online. My wife will miss it as she always is looking for coupons but I reckon we will live.

So, what important mail would this affect? The only thing that I can think of would be notifications of a legal nature. By them not being delivered on Saturday, you won't have to worry about them until they come on Monday. After all, when you did receive them on Saturday, you couldn't do anything until Monday any way except worry.

Now, you have weekends almost without worries unless you received something on Friday.

Perhaps, we can talk the USPS into stopping Friday delivery also.