FIVE. To save a few billion a year, the Post Office is thinking of cutting mail service down from six days a week to five. A few billion? Let’s just make it every other day, and save a few more billion. I’m trying to think of a single piece of mail I’ve gotten that was so important it couldn’t have come a day later without changing my life. The phone bill came on Thursday instead of Wednesday? Heads will roll! The fifth L.L. Bean catalog of the month comes a day late? How should I vent my outrage? I needed that Canadian blanket coat yesterday! Oh, the humanities.

I don’t know if the people at the Post Office have heard about it, but there’s this new technology (if “new” meant 40 years old) called e-mail. It’s like regular mail except it moves at the speed of light and you don’t need a stamp, and it’s faster, better and cheaper. And there’s another thing that helps a lot when you positively, absolutely must get a message to someone right away. It’s called a telephone. I’ve heard they’re easy to use and it’s almost as if the person you are talking to is in the room with you. I predict that, someday, almost everyone will have one.