The privileged class

So I prepared a manuscript for submission this morning, and I stopped by the post office on the way to work to mail it. This was the post office on 34th Street between Park and Lex, at about 10 am.

As I approached the propped-open front door, I had to step lively to keep from being run down by woman pushing a cart full of brown-paper packages of all sizes. The woman was fifty or so, potato-shaped, with ill-advised red-dyed hair and ill-advised tight white stirrup pants.

I bounced through the outer door and prepared to hold the inner door open for the cart woman, as I am usually wont to do, well-mannered fellow that I am. However, when the woman said, "Hold that door open for me," in a tone that made it clear that she was the lady of the manor and I was the servant in grubby livery, with nary a please or a question mark or an ounce of courtesy in earshot, I nearly balked. I nearly—and the words were right there on my tongue—nearly said, "I was planning to before you asked me like that," but, thanks again to my good manners, I said nothing. I just held the door.

When she was through the door, I stepped lively again to beat her to the end of the line. I was damned if I'd let her and her bushel of parcels on line in front of me. I reached the end of the queue and took my place—but the woman didn't even glance in the direction of the line. She went straight to one of the counters. "These are all unopened," she announced in a loud voice to the nearest postal worker. "Can I leave them with you?"

There were six or seven people ahead of me in line. I tried to just ignore the red-haired woman and ogle the Japanese woman ahead of me in line instead, but when I happened to glance back in the direction of the counter I saw that station heaped high with all those packages, which bore the logos of merchants like Amazon.com.

"Gott im Himmel," I thought, "if she needs more help than just tossing those packages into the outgoing mail bin . . ."

I watched in disbelieving fascination as the man behind the counter began examining the packages. "Look at this scotch tape," he said, holding up one package. "This has been opened and retaped."

"Not by me," said the woman.

"This one too." The man held up another package and peeled the scotch tape off it. "Someone sure opened this up."

"I didn't do it!"

"I'm sorry, we can't accept these packages for return. If you want to ship them, you'll have to pay the full postage."

The woman tapped her foot. "All right, I'll just pay for them."

"Then you're going to have to get in line, ma'am."

"I'm on my way out right now! I'm leaving now."

"Ma'am . . ."

"I'm leaving. I'll just leave these here."

The postman sighed and started weighing the packages. By the time he was done, I was nearly at the front of the line. All the time, I was entertaining fantasies of saying, "Uh-uh, no way. You don't help until all these people here in line have been helped." Failing that, I hoped at least to be able to walk by her as I left the post office and tell her that I'd never witnessed such appallingly rude and self-absorbed behavior.

But she was long gone by the time my story was mailed. So now I can only tell you.

What I will be watching this evening

Tonight the new season of the documentary series P.O.V. debuts on PBS, with an episode called "The Smith Family":

The Smiths of Salt Lake City may have America's most common surname, but their story is anything but ordinary. With two boys, a dog, a nice house and a strong commitment to the Mormon Church, Steve and Kim Smith believed they had achieved the American dream. But after nine years of marriage, shattering revelations of betrayal came—enough to test the strongest bonds of faith and love. When Steve confessed to infidelities with men, and they both find they are HIV+, Kim makes an unlikely choice. "The Smith Family" is a searing account of one family's struggle to preserve family and faith, while redefining forgiveness in the face of daunting tragedy.

It's on at 10:00 pm tonight Eastern time. Go here to check your local PBS station's schedule

Family jewels

Do you all have relatives that forward you the stupidest, most offensive emails ever written? I love my uncle dearly, but he has the habit. I just got the one from him, which you've probably seen, about how racial profiling of Muslim males at airport security is justified, and we should leave the little old ladies, kids, and Congressmen alone. It comes in the form of a ten-question quiz on who was responsible for various infamous acts of terror over the past thirty years.

Well, sometimes I go off my nut a little when I get thoughtless tripe like this in my inbox, especially from someone who knows that I and at least two other relatives on his mailing list have vastly different political beliefs from your average Mormon Republican.

So I reply-all'd the following:

Right, let's stop searching everyone at airport security, because no white person would *ever* try to blow up a plane. We Caucasians concentrate on Federal buildings like the one in Oklahoma City instead. In fact, let's not stop at profiling in airports. I won't be happy until the nice Pakistani man who owns the grocery store on my corner is in an internment camp with his wife and children. And I like the Egyptian restaurant over on Steinway Street so much that I think I'll go smash it up with a baseball bat.

The second we start singling people out for special treatment because of the color of their skin or their religious beliefs is the second that the Bill of Rights stops protecting any of us. Don't forget there was a time when Mormons were seen as a threat to America, and I don't think any of us would want a return to days like those.

So if you're concerned about airport security, then hitch up your trousers, stop complaining, and submit to the same security procedures as your Muslim neighbors. This is America, and we should all bear the burden of security together.

Hey, it's America. I can have my say too, even amongst family. I look forward to the fallout.