Free Ice Cream
Random Day, 1991: Arrive at Royal Oak Post Office, pick up X mail. After
a ten-minute drive to work, I find my co-workers glued to the radio; an
ex-postal employee just shot up the place. "But I was just there and ...
ewwww..."
April 15th, 1994: Arrive at Royal Oak Post Office, pick up X mail. Am
accosted by person of unknown gender, dressed in (what appeared to be)
a large eagle costume, passing out pads of paper and pens. The side of
the pen reads:
by Mark Simple
95apr18
Post Office Visits I Have Known (addendum).
Random Day, 1990: Arrive at Royal Oak Post Office, pick up X mail. Minutes
later, mail bomb goes off.
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE
April 17th, 1995: As staff Macro historian Neal Manson and I walk up,
we notice a now-familiar tv news truck parked outside. Momentarily
forgetting the day's proximity to our nation's fine tax deadline, I run
through a quick mental checklist: "terrorists?" "ebola virus?" "comet?"
Lot of people with suits on, can't be any type of unexpected tragedy. Pick
up the mail (a ton of bills), and I'm stopped as I exit by someone from
Edy's Ice Cream Inc.: "Want some free ice cream?" "Hell yes!" Neal already
had picked up his share, and we had a fine ice cream eating time while
watching a WDIV-TV greenhorn making the annual tax day puff piece broadcast.
Someone from Edy's slipped him a bar just before he went on the air, in a
brilliant piece of product placement. Could you think of a more worthwhile
job? I mean the ice cream people, not the reporter. Imagine, giving away
ice cream, for free! Who's going to argue with that, except those wussy
lactose-intolerant gimps? This gets me thinking that this free ice
cream gig is going to line me up with random babes, so I confront the
elderly lady holding the big free ice cream bag:
Royal Oak District
"Service" is our last name.
"Can I give out some ice cream?"
And RIGHT THEN, of course, she gives a bar to what was to be MY future
WIFE in that PARALLEL DIMENSION in which MRS. FRUMPY didn't have such an
ATTITUDE!!! But I got free ice cream. Of course, as we're leaving,
somebody dressed up as an eagle gives me a flyer announcing a food drive.
I'm having a problem with this eagle thing, I really don't understand the
motivation behind it. I think it's my reluctance to relate the concepts of
"taxation" and "freedom," but don't worry, I'll get over it. There was
some sort of demonstration there, according to people I talked with later,
but all I saw was a car plastered with placards that had the words "tax"
and "Levin" jammed into various forgettable sentences. I rate the
effectiveness of this demonstration to be 0%.
"No. Only people associated with Edy's . . . my son works there."
"Just three bars."
"Nope."