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Drooling on the Pillow

Monday, May 16, 2005

The Birth of a Libertarian 

The Metropolitan Diary is a feature of the New York Times I generally find almost as irritating as The Ethicist. It's a once-a-week section where readers tell fey little stories of the charming and wacky things that make up Life In New York. In reality, they're little advertisements for the correspondents' sophistication and hard-wired irony.

I liked one of the stories today, though.

Dear Diary:

Ordering stamps online - what a concept! No lines. No dollar
bills jamming the self-service machine. No walks to and
from the post office in the rain or snow or gloom of night.

About 10 days after placing my first online order for a roll of
stamps and some postcards, I found in my mailbox a pink
slip notifying me that there was a package being held for me
at the post office. The sender: the United States Postal
Service's Stamp Fulfillment Center.

What? I now need to stand on line at the post office to claim
my order for stamps that I placed online so that I would not
have to stand on line at the post office?

The final indignity was that the postal clerk would not release
the package until I produced proof of my identity.

Phyllis Ilie

What did strike me as charming was Ms. Ilie's faith in the intention and ability of the USPS to make her life easier. Gone forever.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:43 AM
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