Pony Express

The first horseman of the apocalypse usually rides into town on a white steed.

The embodiment of righteousness. Deliverer of the good word...and bad news.

A biblical postal worker, if I may overstretch an analogy, as usual.

Unfortunately, there are three more fellas behind this pony-apocalypse-express, each with their own brand of end-of-days parting gifts.

Mail in Canada was once delivered by ponies. If you happened to live north of the treeline, birthday cards came by dogsled. Today, with every modern technology at its disposal, the Canadian national letter carrier cannot perform its singular task.

The end is nigh.

It would prefer you do it yourself.   At least some of the way.  Naturally, charging you a little more for the privilege and leaning evermore on their already over-worked employees.

Exploitative price increases, spectacular cost savings (half a billion) through layoffs and axing door-to-door, while posting tidy profits, this crown corporation has fooled us all.

The Canadian stamp does not even have the courtesy of letting you know its worth.  The cost has been removed from its design for some time now.  A seemingly innocuous omission of a number has allowed its price to be discreetly and ridiculously inflated.

A single Canadian stamp now costs one dollar.  Canada Post ended its 2014 year having sold an extra 194 million of them.  Somehow they need my help?

For one dollar your piece of mail will not reach its destination.  It will come close though. For one dollar, your nana will get her birthday card from metal box a short walk from her home.  She may walk it back in the rain. Maybe on ice.  Unless she lives in Vancouver.  Then, definitely rain.  Out west, they're having a problem with theft, so she may not get anything at all.  Poor little old lady.

Best to just text her.

Community mailboxes are springing up everywhere across the country. They are installed in a few short hours, in the light of day, with almost no resistance.   Everyone is at work.  Generating tax dollars.

Fret not, lovers of longhand paper travel, there is a small faction of folk who are trying to "save" Canada Post.  Sigh.

Until last week, the proposed space for my postal grab-bag was a flower garden, planted by my neighbourly non-conformists who fought hard to save door-to-door.  A nice try.  Now the personal information of my entire block is stored in one location, available to anyone with a screwdriver and a crowbar.  When the temperature dips and the sun begins to set at 5pm, there will invariably be a crush of headlights surrounding this area, engines idling daily.

Very environmental.

Thankfully, some Canadians aren't the passive lay-down-and-take-it types.  One Charlottetownian has gone so far as to park a trailer on his future site for these metallic monstrosities.  His front lawn spared.  For now.

Of course, everything assumes that Canada Post delivers items of a personal nature.  Since May, I have been collecting in my mailbox anything not addressed to me.  On the first anniversary of this postal bilge collection experiment, I plan to return-to-sender every piece, one by one, using the very company that delivered it to me.

If Canada Post wants to waste my time at my expense, I can happily double their efforts by not affixing postage, returning junk mail.  Repeatedly.

I had thought about a deluge of December Dear Santa letters, but Canada Post uses volunteers for this "charitable" effort.  Even Santa's replies will delivered to the community mailbox.  More lies parents will need to tell to keep the dream alive.

This Hallowe'en I might use my communal mailbox for an effective way to disperse goodies.  Think of the time saved.  Think of the children.

I certainly don't mind walking the two-hundred feet for a pizza flyer. Frankly, the more opportunity for caloric burn, the better.   Though if I'm to do some of their work, I expect to share in their profits.

Clip-clop.