Here’s how we save the USPS
By: Carmen Ribecca
Tags: Postal Service, Election 2020, Donald Trump, Louis Dejoy

Photo by Victória Kubiaki on Unsplash

Donald Trump istrying like hell to steal this election. On the indirect side, he’s stoking racial fears with his dog whistle suburban housing policies and white fright ads about an absentee police force. More overtly, he executed a craven plan to let Americans die in a pandemic, banking on blue states to take the hardest hit so he could blame poor state and local Dem leadership. Because remember how his administration’s official COVID-19 response was and still is, “Fuck it, you figure it out.” Inspiring stuff.

And now, he’s disenfranchising voters in the most explicit way since the Jim Crow era — by making it physically impossible for their ballot to reach the ballot box. That is, of course, because unprecedented millions of Americans will vote by mail this year, and the United States Postal Service knows that it cannot meet that demand without additional resources.

The USPS asked for emergency funding and Donald Trump said no. He also installed as postmaster general Louis DeJoy, a no-experience mega donor, to whip the mail service into shape, which we all know simply means layoffs paired with demanding lower paid employees to do more with less. That is literally the only move a shitbag “reformer” CEO has.

So, Congress is on the case. Emergency sessions this and supporting states filing a lawsuit to stop the removal of drop boxes that… but I have no faith in them, either.

We need real solutions to save the good people who deliver those restaurant coupon flyers we take to our spouses and say, “Huh. Check out this place… it looks decent,” in the hopes that they will say, “You want to just get takeout?” That way, neither of you directly made the poor decision on your own to blow $40 on 4,500 calories of deep fried emotional suppression on a Tuesday night. Yikes, that felt pretty specific, didn’t it? No one else engaging in passive aggressive pathways to guilt-free binge eating this pandemic? (Don’t worry, there will probably be more.)

Where was I? Oh right, we need to save the post office. Here are my stupid ideas for that.

Hit the switches on them bitches

Hear me out. We put hydraulics on the Jeeps. I know that seems like a huge counterproductive cost, but just picture mail carrier Jeff bumping Gin & Juice while his front tires jack up and down five feet off the ground? Shit, I’ll donate to that all day. And think of all the mail that will get jostled out in the process that Jeff simply won’t have to deliver. Efficiency!

Think of the children

College kids are going to have so much free time in between virtual classes, and we all know there’s no such thing as socially distanced butt-chugging. These poor kids will be so sober and lonely! And to make it fun for them, we should let them hang off the back of the Jeep like garbage collectors.

The idea I stole from Chris Rock

Make stamps $5.00. This will declutter mailrooms quick. At that rate, no one’s sending out pointless appointment reminders or applications for credit cards you already have. (Shut up, I know I said the opposite up there about the restaurant flyers.)

Send Nudes

Forget sexting. Go old school on behalf of one of the federal government’s most venerable service organizations with a Polaroid, some sexy lighting, and a healthy dose of relaxed inhibitions. Bonus points if you “forget” to seal the envelope for creepy mail carrier Steve.

Cut the head off the fat, rapey snake

Impeach Trump again. Seriously, just pick any one of the criminal acts he’s committed both before and after the first time we impeached him. Then, actually remove him from office this time and let NY prosecutors descend on him like they no doubt will, which is actually why he’s terrified to lose.

Go Walmart on this bitch

Keep that overtime flowing with 24/7 service. Who doesn’t want their dog flipping the fuck out at midnight when mail carrier Rita drops off that booze you ordered online. I know I personally love scrambling out of bed in a half asleep panic, reaching for the gun I don’t have to defend myself.

Take a page from the NFL. They’re doing great, right? (Don’t google that)

Switch up those uniforms. The sports world does this all the time. Throwback jerseys rock, so why not bring back the original postal service uniform, which looks like this:

Let’s be honest, that’s fucking badass, and it beats the hell out of trying not to stare directly at mail carrier Bob’s horrible hairy knees when you awkwardly approach the mailbox as he delivers.

Don’t you know your mother worries?

Buy some $5.00 stamps and send her a card. Jesus, it’s the least you could do.

Harness the power of dumb

Let’s keep this mail-in vote fraud myth going. Did you know there are is a shockingly large number of morons who think Democrats operate a secret pizza parlor basement-based pedophile ring? These numbnuts also believe school shootings are hoaxes, COVID death numbers are exaggerated, the Earth is flat, masks don’t work, and mail-in voting is rife with fraud. Simply put, it’s not. But let’s let them keep believing this. It will lighten the load for the mail carriers handling ballots and hopefully drive these fools screaming into the apocalypse bunkers they made by installing pee-filters in old school buses and burying them underground.

Can we just do the right fucking thing for goddamn once?

The USPS is almost universally accepted as a GOOD and WORTHY thing. We’ve all seen the arguments for its merits, including the reliable delivery of medication, paychecks, and vital information like, say, a bank telling you they sold your house out from under you to a vampire capitalist.

These are things people need. And they get them for the low price of whatever a stamp costs now that miraculously grants you access to a logistical network that would blow your mind if you know how many steps and people were involved.

Does it run perfectly? No. Is it broke? Yeah, constantly. Is that because of the neocon wet dream that all government agencies should run like businesses even if that’s clearly not possible? Pretty much, yeah.

So let’s please (*cough* looking right at you, Congress *cough*), for once in this shitscape timeline, just do what needs to be done and bail out the USPS. We need it right now. We’ll need it for the foreseeable future.

After all, if the government can afford to buy $1280 coffee mugs (yep, that’s each) for the Air Force, it can afford to keep Nana’s insulin coming.