Mind Your Fingers

The regulations governing the size and location of mailboxes is contained in the Postal Gazette—a document rivaling Britannica Encyclopedia for size which now arrives quarterly in CD-ROM form or may be consulted online via the Corporate Manual System. A mailbox is supposed to be large enough to hold a customer’s mail, protect it from the elements, and be securely affixed to the wall at a reasonable height; a mail slot should be at least 3 inches by 6 inches and a minimum of three feet above the surface one is standing on when it is serviced and not more than five feet above it. Sometime when I’ve had time to look it up and permission to publish it I’ll include a direct quote.

Most customers, of course, have never read the Postal Gazette. Every paperboy can tell you about the granny who has a cavernous strongbox the size of Fort Knox and gets one letter a month and the business executive who gets mail by the truckload and has a dainty little ornament that he’s never gotten around to mounting on the wall. I once had a developer who received the gas and hydro bills monthly for an entire subdivision he was building who had one small partially blocked mail slot 6 inches above the ground.

Mail slots are a special cross that must be born. They come in all shapes and sizes, double hung, spring-loaded, and with razor sharp edges. Every new trainee is advised that if he wants to keep them all intact he should never push fingers through one. In this case the hazard is not the receptacle itself but “Jaws III” waiting on the other side. Every mail route has at least one house at which the mail is cautiously started on its way through the slot taking care not to have too tight a grip on it for before the operation is complete the mail magically disappears as if sucked into a vacuum tube. This action may or may not be accompanying by other sound effects including but not limited to scratching noises, barking, growls, panting, and the sound of shredding paper. One customer after an exhaustive search found their toll-road transponder buried among the cushions in the living room sofa. Another had to have their lawyer reprint the deed to their home and yet another, her doctoral diploma replaced.

Back in the 70s every respectable home had a life-time subscription to National Geographic and Life Magazine. Life was a glossy 10 by 14 inch monthly purgatory for letter carriers until lack of sufficient interested advertisers put an end to its existence. In those days I used to rail about customers who had a mail slot a mosquito couldn’t f**t through, (pass flatus), who complained about its condition when it arrived at the other end—leaving the thing out in the rain wasn’t an option either.

One of my fondest memories is of the Wall Street Journal and a little Dachshund who displayed the stubbornness and determination for which Germans are supposedly noted. Yes, two to three pound, three-inch-thick copies of the Wall Street Journal once arrived daily for delivery to investors in East Oakville. The home in question had a small letter-sized slot through which this monster was expected to be passed—not an easy task and I’ll not vouch for the product that arrived at the other end. Enter the Dachshund who felt it his duty to assist in the operation. This performance is one I’ve always wished I could have witnessed first hand. As the much folded newspaper made its appearance through the slot our friend would grab it and start tugging and grunting. The task being too much for the little fellow but that stubborn streak not permitting a back down he’d hold on as the paper slowly turned to mush. When that mouth full of soggy paper finally cut off his breath there’d eventually be a small cough and the dog could be heard collapsing on the floor. Nothing daunted the performance was repeated daily.

Another challenge was delivering larger items through accommodating slots despite the competition on the other side. Having worked the offending parcel half way through the slot accompanied by a woof and bump on the door the item would come hurtling back through the door often to land in a mud puddle. On one occasion I’d worked the offending item just far enough into the slot to enable completion of the task, and then before the dog could get to it I gave it a sudden, sharp push. The book shot through the slot and on the other side could be heard connecting with something other than the floor. The lady of the house, without opening the door, announced, “You got him, right on the head.”

With the ‘benefit’ of age and maturity today I’d out and out refuse to bend over to deliver mail to a slot at ground-level. This may sound petty but think about doing this day in and day out even when tired and sick, loaded down with thirty-five pounds of mail and your perspective may change. When I was younger and less militant I tolerated these abuses and at one such slot as I was hunched over to accomplish the task I could hear the daily snuffling and throaty growls of the two Great Danes I knew to reside within. Imagine then, if you will, my reaction when, upon performing this daily task I came to the realization that there was utter silence within. Gingerly turning, at eye level, I was met with the rapt stares of the two dogs standing at attention four feet away. Lucky for me their only interest was in seeing what this looked like from my side of the slot.