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I pretend to be a prickly pessimist, the kind of cold stoic who describes his pessimism as "simple realism," a staunch rationalist who professes to share Louis C.K.'s skepticism that anything nice will ever happen but really, and perhaps this has been leaking out of these newsletters more than I realize, I am a fairly hopeless optimist in spite of myself. I answer the phone for unlisted numbers despite overwhelming evidence that the person on the other line is either a bot, an NSA spook or wants my blood but I can't shake the feeling that I may gain a new friend in Oregon with just the press of a button. Surely that's optimism. Despite empirical evidence to the contrary, I secretly harbor certainty that my teams will end up winning championships that they almost never do. That is a sports fan's obligated optimism. How about this thorny scenario: I recently bought four scratch off lottery tickets for my nephew because he beat me in a game of bocce ball. I didn't quite let him win but there were a few throws where I intentionally didn't put in my best effort (in another way in which I am less than my picture of myself, I've always wanted to be the kind of hardass who never lets children beat me in anything because I read in a profile of Bob Gibson that he is that way but when faced with an actual child, I crumble). Just the same, my nephew said he beat me because of a lucky necklace so I felt lotto tickets would make for a just reward. His brother got a ticket as well for participating. Before they scratched them off, I became nervous that the older nephew would win a sizable amount of money, which would be complicated seeing as it was my ticket and I would like a sizable amount of money. Then I began to worry that the younger nephew, with his lone ticket, would win big which has the aforementioned complications PLUS a perverse sense of justice seeing as he only got a ticket in the first place to avoid feeling left out. Is that optimism that I was certain that I would win? Or pessimism that I was certain I was in for a calamity? Or narcissism that I was certain such a thing would happen to me? The only thing I know for sure is that it's neurotic. 

It's this sense of optimism (or whatever it is) that informs my love of the mail. I love getting mail. The anticipation of a package I've ordered is often more satisfying that the item itself. I love the ephemera of the postal process; the envelopes, the letters, the stamps. This love extends to bills and junk as well, which I see less as chores and more as easy tasks to be accomplished (though Liz can tell you about meltdowns if an unexpected bill ends up in the box from an industry that I barely understand and therefore distrust, like insurance or medicine, which is evidence that these corporations are out to get me [side note: is it possible to be a paranoid optimist?]).

When I was younger I was a stamp collector of a sort. Short on income, I would peel stamps off the mail we received, unaware that they were worthless once they'd been sent. This was in Memphis in the mid-1990s, the height of the popularity of the iconic pink Elvis stamp, chosen by an unprecedented public vote, and I had a ton of them stuck to a folder (or half-stuck anyway, as peeling them off ruined the adhesive). The root of philatelist, the word for someone who collects stamps, comes from ancient Greek. It does not mean, as many may assume "one who is frightened of adult women" but "exempt from payment" which is what a stamp does for a letter, though stamps are a fairly modern phenomena, being invented in the form we know them in Britain in 1840. Today, English stamps contain about 5.9 calories in their glue, a scary thought for British brides who need to both fit into their dresses and get 300 invitations out the door.

I love that stamps are a way of honoring a nation's culture. Many of my American heroes have been on stamps. There's a Faulkner stamp, an Otis Redding stamp, an Orson Welles stamp. Further, not being a stamp is a sign of edginess and cool. They'll never let Amiri Baraka or Angela Davis on a stamp. The world isn't ready for a Charles Burnett stamp. In many African countries, stamps are used to honor cultural heroes of other nations. The Central African Republic, Niger and Mozambique have all issued stamps celebrating Len Hutton, an early 20th century English cricket player. Those counties have no cricket tradition, nor were they English colonies. Flemish painter Bruegel the Elder can be found on the stamps of Sierra Leone. Guinea-Bissou is a nation with a rich musical heritage but one that does not usually associate with European styles, yet, they saw fit to commemorate the 260th anniversary of Bach's death with a stamp. Perhaps the Bissau-Gineans see a kinship between the polyrhythms of their native gumbe music and the counterpoint of baroque harmonies but the truth is the nation is selling those stamps not to its citizens but to collectors abroad, who will pay a premium for them, they issue them as a way to raise money.

It comes to my attention that our very own postal service in America is in need of some money at the moment. Perhaps stamps honoring Kant or Lionel Messi or Nelson Mandela are forthcoming, though I'm not sure that will fix the problem. The White House says that the USPS loses money because its prices are too low and because its deals with companies like Amazon, which it makes local deliveries for in some cases, are losers. This isn't really the crux of the post office's woes, much more damaging is the fact that people send less first-class mail, which is a market problem, and, since 2006, congress has required the postal service to fund a retirement healthcare program that is unique among government agencies, a mandate that makes it virtually impossible for the USPS to turn a profit, and that's a political problem. 

The market problem is not going away, first class mail is less necessary than it was a generation ago and you are reading one of the reasons why. The political problem is reversible. Part of the drama around the post office lately is that the White House claims it is tinkering with the mail's logistics to bring it into the black and many on the left find the cost-saving measures to be thinly veiled attacks on the service's ability to competently handle what is expected to be higher-than-average mail-in voting this fall, voting that statistically favors Democrats. The fact is, though, is that the United States Postal Service is already a fairly lean-running machine (not a statement you can make about many government services) and would have turned a profit in each of the last eight years if not for this congressional mandate, which requires the USPS to create a $72 billion dollar fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. Apple may be one of the most profitable companies in the world but even its cash on hand would suffer greatly if it were required to pony up the dough for the benefits of every employee it will every have now until 2100 immediately. Imagine your bank account if you had to pay your mortgage and the mortgage on the next 6 houses you'll buy all at once. A bill to repeal the mandate has passed the House but has not been voted on in the Senate and considering the president has referred to the post office as "a joke," that "should raise the price of a package by approximately four times," it's unclear whether or not the chief executive will sign off on legislation if he believes the real problem is prices.

While it's unusual for an incumbent president to run on a message of "you should pay more," people who advocate for the mandate say it's about protecting postal workers, an admirable goal. Postal workers really are heroes and their contributions should not be taken lightly. In 1879, the Belgian city of Liège commissioned 37 cats to deliver mail and it was a very predictable absolute disaster. It's also a thankless job as the first woman to run a post office in Germany found when she was later burned as a witch. Postal workers contribute to society in unknowable ways, like the postman who planted a tree in 1926 from which 95% of all avocados are descended from. And if the mandate was the best way to protect these worker's retirement, I could make an argument for them. However, the mandate requires payments for total projected liability, which assumes that every single postal employee will retire through the post office and require their full benefits paid, which is simply not true. Allowing the post office to even pay a fund based on total vested liability, the way nearly every private business does, would cut the service's mandated burden in half. 

The postal service is older than the Declaration of Independence, it has lasted longer than ancient Greek democracy and it is the only delivery service that is required by law to protect your personal information which makes it absolutely essential like a different government service that also doesn't turn a profit; the military. As voting by mail looks to increase, so does the chance that recounts will be necessary before we know the outcome of the election. In that regard it is more critical than ever that the post has what it needs to do the job. Being an optimist, I am certain they can do it. I do have a modest proposal for a service the post office might bring back. Until 1913, American children could legally be sent by parcel post. That is a service I would be willing to buy many stamps for.