paper pusher

My neighbor in Dallas has been picking up the mail the postal carrier keeps stuffing into our mailbox there. Even though it's been almost two months since we submitted our change of address information to the Postal Service we still get at least several pounds of mail at the old address every week. I understand their policy of not forwarding junk mail but I was surprised and a little shocked to find that my federal income tax package had not been considered important enough to forward to my new address.

Looking through the bag of letters I found they also do not forward letters from medical facilities or the monthly water bill; yet we recceive all duplicate offers for satellite tv service and the LL Bean clothing catalogs. I have to wonder if there's a "forwarding dictator" in each post office who arbitrarily designates which items are to be forwarded and which will languish at the old address to eventually become part of the landfill when the new tenants deposit the letters in the trash bin. I can see the tyrannical tsar, now, leaning back in his cushy office chair with his loafer-clad feet propped on his desk (I say "he" because I don't see the postal service assigning such a position to a woman). He's got a stack of stuff on his desk and he sifts through it a handful at a time, sailing letters to the left or to the right side of the office depending on his mood. Later, his minions gather the discordant piles and place yellow forwarding stickers on the paper from one corner, while simply tossing the rest back into the stream of usps confusion.

lucky me, I have my tax forms even sans yellow sticker. Today I begin my calculations.