Audiobooks > What's Your Name
Again?
by Jonathan Lowe
As an employee in the forwarding department at the main Tucson
post office for over 15 years, I knew more than most how often
people move, but what sometimes both amused and confused me is
where they move, and why. While it might be understandable
for folks to move here to Tucson during our mild winter, why
do most of them seem to come from places like Minnesota and
Michigan? Would everyone in the frozen north move here if
they could, or is global warming their biggest fear? Were
they grilling bison burgers on their patio barbecue to keep
warm in Montana when it occurred to them to pack it in and
move to Arizona or Florida? Who are these people, anyway, who
live on the 15000 block of 484th Avenue in Millbank, South
Dakota? And how can such an address even exist?
The Zip code for Millbank is 57252, by the way. And yes,
there is an 484th Avenue there. Nevermind that there's no
484th Avenue even in Phoenix, which is soon to supplant
Philadelphia as America's fifth most populous city.
Of course many people move for reasons other than
weather. If they're not retired, or don't have retired
relatives stridently urging them to move somewhere, it's
probably for the job prospects. Yet there could be a more
sinister reason as well. Consider people's names. I'm not
talking about names like Zugglewort or Spitsnoggle, which we
encounter all the time. I mean famous names, like Elvis
Presley. Putting aside the question of why a pregnant woman
named, say, Hariett Presley would decide to name her son
Elvis, my question is: "why is he now moving?" Wouldn't he
want to stay put, knowing there are people still out there
looking for the real Elvis, to this day? Does he carry a
guitar with him too, as he skulks from place to place, and is
there more than just a faint resemblance? Maybe the reason is
that he's convinced himself he's actually the King, and must
keep moving? It's possible. Anything is possible. You come
to that conclusion just by sorting people's mail, for sure.
Did I mention I've also seen the names Jack Nicholson,
Elizabeth Taylor, Wayne Newton, John Wayne, George Burns,
Pamela Sue Anderson and Ronald Reagan? Oh yes, the list goes
on. Once I stared in disbelief at the name Carmen Electra.
True, I don't think Carmen is hiding here in Tucson for the
summer, where it can rise to 110 degrees in the shade. And I
doubt there's some secret involving California and
earthquakes, with Carmen wanting to move east of the
California/Arizona border in time to see her agent slide into
the water with the other sharks. But you gotta wonder.
Dick Chaney and George Bush live here too, I'm told. They
probably live in lots of places, maybe even Millbank, South
Dakota. Or maybe Millbank just has Osama bin Hiden, some
nutty cab driver who lives in a double wide trailer over on
the 9000 block of 372nd Avenue. Although with hundreds of
miles of open borders, I do wonder how many real terrorists
await their General Delivery mail at post office windows each
day. All a letter carrier can do when they vanish, of course,
is to fill out a change of address card marked "Moved, Left No
Address," so that all their credit card bills and student loan
applications will be returned to sender. (Hopefully any
envelopes containing anthrax, too. . . but only if the names
and addresses are printed legibly.)
And that's another thing. With so many people off playing
musical Lazy Boys, why do they complain about how slow the
post office itself moves in delivering their mail? I mean
after scribbling some name and address on an envelope which
not even an Eagle Scout can read, much less a computerized
optical character reader. And it's not just doctors who do
this, either, but the average Joe or Jane Austin. Are we
clairvoyant? Just because they THOUGHT the name and address
correctly in their minds, should we be able to garner clues
from the squiggles they left on paper? Add an incorrect Zip
code to this, and you'll begin to see why getting such a
letter back into the mail stream on time isn't easy,
especially since that stream is more like a river crammed with
billions of grocery store ads and bank applications addressed
to people named Zugglewort or Spitsnoggle. Good thing these
customers don't know to actually TYPE their names and
addresses so the machines replacing us can actually replace
us. Then I'd be out of work and looking to move myself. .
.and for the job prospects elsewhere.
True, that may happen anyway. High tech is coming to the
Postal Service, and people are already being asked to retire
early. Hasn't happened yet in huge numbers, but the day has
come for my own move sooner than I expected. People always
seem to move sooner--and more often--than we expect, these
days.
Where to move?
Well, I'm thinking Montana. I want to live where it's
cooler. And I'd like to have neighbors like Robert Redford
and Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields and Evel Knievel, too.
Not the real celebrities, of course. Just some average
folks who'll remind me that I was once a postal clerk. -0-
(Early outer Jonathan Lowe has served over 22 years, and is
now only a postal customer who will never complain about the
speed of the mail, or ask whether that letter he just mailed
is going out tonight.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
