5.18.2015

My favorite big-city post office…

I Love the Post Office - NYTimes.com

“…this is a paean to the big-city post office, those grimy, chaotic, good-will-draining temples of American bureaucratic dysfunction, where hopes and packages are mangled, and lunch hours are not to be trifled with, and where you can still experience a city in all its magnificent, unfriendly, unruly mess."

…is the one on 14th Street in Manhattan, where the signs above the three big, brass mail drops in the lobby read (or. in the early 1960s, read) Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Out of Town, and Foreign.

But my favorite post office anywhere, at least so far, is in Stevensville, Michigan. I was standing in line there late one summer morning behind three young women who were discussing the lunch order they’d been charged with picking up on their way back to the office. As they got to the front of the line, one of the women said, “Mary asked for ham on rye, but I don’t remember if she said mustard or mayo."

“Mary wants mustard,” said the postal clerk behind the counter.

“Oh. OK."

Where else can you get service like that?

No comments: