In Line at the Post Office Blues

I stood in line at the post office to mail two packages of my books. Still some readers out there, which is heartening.

At the counter, a woman was losing it over a lost Amazon order. Ahead of me, and old man complained about the shoddy service, backstabbing with glee when the clerk left to attend to something. Then he cracked unfunny jokes, one of them about setting up a McDonald’s in the lobby because the wait time was so long. A real comedian. Utterly disgusting in his condescending of a front line worker.

And also this:

Behind me, a rotund man, the only person in line or behind the counter NOT wearing a mask, kept joking about the slow service. He was not funny, either.

I said nothing. The maskless man looked stupid. He had stupidity etched in his stupid face. He fancied himself a real tough guy by breaking the mask law for freedom’s sake. He probably thought that up all by himself. But in reality, it came out of the cleavage of a Fox News foxy babe. Real truth in there.

I haven’t heard a single original thought uttered by an American in months. Everything is derivative. Everything is poached. Spoon fed. Pablum. Cliche. Pudding.

I know it was exactly the same during the anti-communist, Red Menace era, but aren’t we supposed to be smarter today?

The line wasn’t moving.

I checked my phone for deliverance, just like everyone else who wants to check out—and watch endless covid conspiracy videos and brainwash themselves into thinking they are original thinkers…BECAUSE THEY JUST KNOW.

No messages. I looked at some of my forts to calm down.

My mind drifted away from the imbecile behind me to the previous night’s conversation I had with my 82-year old neighbor who has a great dog he loves very much.

The conversation did not go well. He lost me when he said Obama and Hillary would be running the country if Biden was elected. He had no basic understanding of the electoral college (99 percent of Americans don’t, including most secondary teachers of American history and government). When I pressed him on it, he didn’t believe a majority vote should decide the outcome of the presidential election.

But of course he would agree to it if Trump won the popular vote and lost the electoral count.

That’s how dumb and ideologically brainwashed it is in America these days. Never forget this Americans: there were millions of Germans who supported Hitler to the end and never admitted error. Millions. And many of those still believed clearing away the rubble and burying bodies.

Same with the losers in the Civil War. They simply weren’t beat down enough by the winners. If they had been, and I’ve saying that for months and months and years and years, this would be an entirely, more just nation.

But it is too late on that front.

To paraphrase Pete Townsend, who is now pushing 75: “Hope I die before I can’t think.”