Paranoid Paul
I ran into my old neighbor Paul down by the Post Office. The Post Office we got is just a private outfit: Copy This, Snail That. It has some P.O. Boxes, sells stamps and envelopes, handles packages, sort of the harbinger of the privatization of mail, I guess, in these distrustful times. Paul had about 6 letters in his mitt, which he almost dumped into the blue mailbox curbside, but pulled up short abruptly.
“Paying bills?” I asked innocuously. “No,” he said somewhat furtively. “I’m flying under the radar these days. The government’s monitoring our phones, reading our e-mail, listening to our cellphone conversations and checking text messages. I’m only communicating by mail now.” He gave me a hard look. “They’re watching everyone now.” When I asked who was watching, he looked disgusted. “Big Brother, that’s who.”
We walked into Copy This, nothing now but a watered down version of its former self, downsized from its heyday at the end of the strip mall, now relegated to a counter just beyond the checkout stations of the IGA. Paul needed a roll of stamps and I needed some too, although not near as many. “I still write letters,” I said, just to pass the time. “Course, they’re not encrypted or anything.”
“Laugh if you want, Daddle. Chuckle all the way to the gulag. This is war now, buddy. War on the citizen. You can lay down if you want, you and all the rest of the sheep, but I’m not going down without a fight.” He got a wad of Forever stamps, nice photo of waterfowl. Government sponsored art, I wanted to say, but Paul was obviously not in the mood for small jests. Still, I couldn’t resist when he handed his mail to Judy, the ersatz postmistress, apparently not trusting the security of the outside mailbox.
“So the government is eavesdropping on all your phone calls. It’s monitoring all your e-mails. It listens to what you say on your cellphone….”
“Correcto, chum.”
“So tell me this — you hand your letters to the U.S. Post Office, you even pay em for each one. You think licking an envelope is security enough?”
Paul glared at me incredulously, probably wondering if I was a secret mailman. But I think I struck a nerve. I never saw him at the Post Office again and I can only assume he communicates by carrier pigeon or trusted courier. Next time I see him, I’ll offer to buy his leftover stamps, maybe half price. War always has its profiteers.
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