Postal-saurus Rex.

For 83 cents Canada Post will send a letter almost anywhere over an area of 9,984,670 square kilometres.  It will most likely reach its destination in under a week.  An overwhelmingly fantastic achievement for any business, muling little pieces of paper, stuffed with other little pieces of paper to 15 million different addresses.

Apparently, the average letter is almost an ounce.  If there are sixteen ounces to a pound, Canada Post charges 13.28/pound to ship christmas cards and gas bills anywhere.

Apparently, the average weight of a Canadian adult male is 185 pounds, give-or-take.  'Give' in my case.  So by letter-mail it would cost upwards of $2456.80 to send a man by mail.  He would have to be made of paper.   And split equally into 2960 stuffed envelopes.

Granted, it's not cost-effective, but an alternative to this country's failing airline and train monopolies.  Slap a fistful of stamps on your kid, and she'll get to summer camp in about 4 days.  Grandma getting on your nerves? For two grand she'll be in New Brunswick before Christmas.

Paying to have your stuff delivered hither-thither has been around these parts for 250 years. Curiously, when Canada was still a colony under the rule of Mad King George II, our first postmaster was none other than the freemason, lightning-thief himself, Benjamin Franklin.  It would be another 100 years before Canada would cobble together our own unified system of stuff-delivery.

It would be another 70 years before women could vote.  Priorities, I suppose.

Today as I stare into pixels, getting my monitor-tan on, (pants optional), techno-minions are plotting ways to re-invent new systems of information and goods delivery.  Methods of payment magically programmed into ones-and-zeros.

I was born in the mid-seventies.  I am a sucker for the tactile. If the telephone rang it was pavlovian.  It would always be picked up, each call a mystery before lifting the receiver. A fingers-crossed, bated-breathed anticipation of a high-school sweethearts voice.  Perhaps the familiar "Is your mom or dad at home?" Nanna calling to wish you a Happy Birthday.

Nobody answers their phone anymore.   Similarly, no one writes letters.

Around the same time as my afternoon coffee has become cold and sad, I will usually hear that familiar crush of boots on snow and the distinctive metallic clang of my letterbox. Each time, I spring to the door (pants on) in the hopes some banter with my letter-carrier will improve my chances of a bountiful delivery.  Maybe a cheque.  A postcard.  Something I ordered on Ebay.

"Got something good for me today?", I'll ask, fishing my hand into the cold mailbox.  More often than not, what I remove is worse than finding nothing.

Flyers.  Goddamn flyers.  Cheap pizza offers.  The local rag.  Political mudslinging leaflets. Bank statements.  A small stack of underwhelming uselessness, begins to pile high on my desk. Things I've not solicited, ordered, asked for, or wanted.    There is so much of this advert-stuffage that if you don't sift through it, actual mail can be missed.

Could it be that Canada Post has become the right hand of the marketing industry and the mistress of the recycling plant?

Paperless society, my ass.