I hate my local post office. I have to go there at least once, sometimes twice per day for my job. We have a medium size P.O. Box (for a small, home run construction business) and they always crumple up the mail before they put it in. If there are a couple days between pickups (lets say the weekend) they shove the mail into the box so hard I can't it out. They never answer the bell at the will-call window for package pickups. I avoid getting help at the front counter like the plague. I even convinced my boss to get a postage meter so I didn't have to wait in line for 30 minutes to buy stamps. The people there are friendly, but incredibly slow and some are not the best with english. I just get angry and impatient thinking about them!

The mail carrier at my new apartment leaves the funniest notes on the boxes. He (or she? I've never seen them...) gets mad when people don't empty their boxes EVERY SINGLE DAY. HE ALSO TYPES THEM IN ALL CAPS. It also bothers him when there aren't apt #s on the mail and he has to look for a name!

So today in class we talked about the similarities and differences between snail mail and email. I thought Fry was just comparing them for those in the class that aren't too tech savvy and need a visual. In the beginning, I couldn't see how the terrible postal service had anything in common with my beloved GMail. However, as our conversation progressed I realized that besides time and cost, almost every word associated with traditional mail also had an email equivalent. This really surprised me because they seem so different. As similar as they are, I'd really rather use my email. I like the ease, the convenience, the informality of email, but maybe that's because I grew up with it?

Oh, and I almost forgot to add this! Here is a neat link to a often imitated, postal service centered art project.