I've got (snail) mail

“Random” thoughts time.

Yesterday I received a piece of snail mail at my new address for the first time.

Two weeks after moving in, I was starting to worry about why I had yet to receive any real mail at my apartment. Though I have yet to officially forward my mail, I have updated my address information with all pertinent institutions. (In regards to my driver’s license and vehicle registration, I have to say the California DMV’s nifty online address change feature was a hell of a lot better than the antiquated, county-by-county system here in the Hawkeye State.) Every day I checked our box in the front entrance to no avail. Mail came for Mervgotti and for Clintoris, who moved out long ago, but not for me. No address change confirmations, no bills, and, thankfully, no spam. Previously requested work related mail has found its way into my parents’ box, but nothing had arrived so far at my new place.

Granted, I do not get that much mail, but I was still worried. Perhaps our mail carrier had returned it. However, seeing the amount of mail addressed to former tenants stacking up in the foyer for return, I could not believe my mail would be so well screened. Whomever delivers our mail puts it in its proper place regardless of whether the addressee lives there or not. So what was the deal? Was something wrong or had no mail come for me?

All my worries were assuaged yesterday when I opened the box to find my Mediacom bill. Leave it to the folks at our fair cable monopoly to deliver my bill even if I lived on a remote and heavily fortified Pacific island, so I suppose I am not out of the woods yet. Nonetheless, I took it as confirmation that, once again, our maligned mail service still works.

Chalk it up to my German heritage and experience in data entry and file maintenance, but I love bureaucratic systems that work efficiently and as intended. Organization turns me on. How scrupulously organized and efficient our postal system actually is is another matter, but as far as I am concerned it has done everything I have asked of it.

On that note, the process of changing my address again puts me in touch with our administrative state — the apparatus we use to govern our land. Also derided and unappreciated, it has done what I have asked it to, and I, as a model citizen (in regards to records, anyway), have followed its directions when needing to deal with it. It is not that hard. Cursed by some, it is apparently a necessary evil of running a sovereign state. How well it works and how user friendly it is is determined by us.

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