It’s Not The Postman Going Postal Today

(A fellow I used to know had a bit of a feud going on with some members of his family at one point. What they were doing was repeatedly going to the post office and redirecting his mail, which, of course, was illegal. When he went to the post office to fix it, they wouldn’t do anything to fix the problem and even allowed it to happen again. He was at his wits’ end, so I coached him on how to fix the problem with the post office. First, I coached him on the importance of only doing it when there were a lot of people in there — an audience if you will. Here is the process I gave him.)

Postal Worker: “Good morning, sir. How may I help you?”

Friend: “Good morning.” *drops phone book on counter and open to a random page* “This person, here: I want their mail redirected to—” *flips phone book to another random page* “—this address, here.” *flips to another page* “And this person, here—” *again flipping page* “I want it sent here.”

Postal Worker: *aghast* “SIR! I can’t allow you to redirect other people’s mail! It isn’t legal!”

Friend: *loudly* “Why not? You’ve let other people do it to me four times in the last month. I should be able to screw other people over, too!”

(Other people waiting in line started to murmur. The upshot was that the station master was called to the front, and his mail was set up requiring picture ID to be presented before his mail could be redirected, thereby ending the problem.)