Wild Dingo

I can’t get my mail because my postman isn’t an ambi-turner. No, really. It’s true. He can’t turn left. At least not at my mailbox.

We moved into our new home in August. After two weeks of receiving our mail, our postman left a note in our mail box to call the Los Gatos post office. After discussions with the post master, Ms. Faupel, we were informed that they would not deliver our mail because our mailbox was not located in a “safe” area and they cannot guarantee delivery in a “rural” area.

We live in “rural” Santa Cruz Mountains in Los Gatos. The description of rural for our neighborhood is questionable in itself because we’re located on the corner of two major roads with a speed limit of 40 mph and only 10 minutes away from a major highway. It’s true that there are many twisty turning roads in the Santa Cruz/Lost Gatos Mountains that are difficult to drive. It’s also true that people living on these difficult-to-drive roads, locate their mailboxes away from their home and onto one of these more heavily traveled roads in order to receive mail in the mountains. The road where my driveway and mailbox are located is one of those heavily traveled roads, with hundreds of mailboxes that span the entire 10 miles from Los Gatos to Soquel.

Our phone conversation went like this:

Me: “Ms. Faupel, I understand you will not deliver my mail.”

Ms. Faupel (MP): “Yes that is true. Your road is unsafe for us.”

Me: “Do you realize that we met county requirements to locate our driveway (and mailbox) in a location that was compliant for traffic safety for a non-blind driveway? And that the county and fire Marshall have agreed that my driveway is indeed safe?”

MF: “It is not safe for us. YOU decided to move to a RURAL area. We can’t guarantee delivery to a RURAL mailbox. You must move your mailbox to Summit road or to Spring Hollow Road.”

[Note: Spring Hollow is one of those difficult-to-drive roads that intersect with my heavily-traveled road. All of Spring Hollow residents receive their mail from mailboxes located on the same road as my mailbox.]

Me: “Summit road is a quarter mile away and I cannot ensure my mail will be safe there. Spring Hollow road is not my address. In addition, there is no room in their quaintly designed mail area for my ugly black lockable mailbox, nor do they want my mailbox there. If he is uncomfortable with our very wide turn around, there is another safe turn around area about 100 feet above my driveway. Can the postman drive there to make his turn around?”

MF: “That would cost us $100/year. We are making cut backs and cannot afford to spend the $100 per year for gas.”

Wow. $100? That much? Something told me this was going nowhere, so I ended the conversation.

Since then, I was forced to open up a mail box in downtown Los Gatos, 12 miles away, and drive daily to check it, wasting fossil fuel and leaving an unnecessary carbon footprint. As a home based business, my annual shipping costs range from $2500-$8000, much of that was business done through the USPS. Today, 100% of my shipping costs are now vended exclusively to United Parcel Services and Federal Express, who not only are able to make left hand turns, but find it in their capacity to punch the keypad at my gate and drive down my driveway to deliver my packages at my door with a smile.

It’s astounding that the US government was able to find such a prized employee with Ms. Faupel’s astute business acumen. I have no doubt that she crunched the numbers and completed numerous economic logarithms to arrive at the decision to turn away $2500 of business for the risk of losing $100 per year in gas. I’m certain she would have calculated in the man-hours it would take to tag each and every one of my hundreds of catalogs I receive each month with a “Return to Sender/No Such Address” sticker. This bold business strategy surely displays some of the most insightful business practice I’ve ever seen and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the move that put the USPS in the black. I’m astonished that her talents have not been discovered by any of the Fortune 500.

But even Ms. Faupel’s cost efficient business savvy can’t compare to her acute sense of logic. She proudly maintains the post office’s policy of not guaranteeing delivery in “rural area” yet in the next breath she tells me my road is too busy and too heavily traveled to make a left hand turn at my driveway. I’m almost afraid to challenge the obvious contradiction found in these statements for fear of being completely shot down by her sharp logic. Nay, my master’s degree in psychology, 18 years of business experience and mere common sense is no match for her “out-of-the-box” thinking. Indeed, I would not want to tangle with such a thinker who’s obviously on the fast-track to the cover of SmartMoney magazine.

This entire experience prompted me to learn a little more about the history of our post office. In my research, I discovered that the “unofficial” famous slogan used to describe our modern day courier system was penned by Herodutus, a Greek historian, who was describing a horse relay system in ancient Persia 2500 years ago: “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Ah, yes. But did they have to turn left? Nowhere in the history does it mention that these couriers were exempt from turning left. Stumped, I kept searching until I reached the Pony Express. Ah, there must be some answers here.

In the 1800’s the Pony Express was developed by courageous, entrepreneurial young men to carry mail by pony relays through the savage wilderness of the American frontier between Missouri and California. Couriers for the Pony Expressed delivered documents for Lincoln’s inaugural address while braving the elements of the wilderness or ambushing thieves firing bullets and arrows. One rider completed an 8 hour-120 mile ride after surviving an ambush that badly wounded him with an arrow tearing through his cheek. The courier’s courage only emphasized his pride and diligence in achieving his goal.

Still, I found nothing in the Pony Express history about completing dangerous left hand turns.

Humbly, I admit my Pottery Barn catalogs and credit card bills cannot compare to documents for Lincoln’s inaugural address. Then again, I’m not asking my postman to brave ambushing thieves or the wilderness of the Wild West. I merely ask that the postmaster and postman dig down deep for some of that Pony Express pride and diligence and find a way to turn left to deliver my mail. Am I asking too much?

When comparing the left hand turn that the postman makes at Spring Hollow to the one he would make at my mailbox I noticed two things:

1. Spring Hollow’s left hand turn is actually much more difficult and harder to see for oncoming traffic than oncoming cars at my mailbox.
2. Spring Hollow’s mailboxes are grouped. My mail box is singular.

It’s obvious that the underlying reason for this request to move my mailbox is to ease the burden of his job. And as the wife of a retired officer of the Navy, who completed 45 combat missions in the Persian Gulf to serve this country’s citizens, which includes this postman, I refuse to reward such laziness.