Recently, a dear friend made the mistake of sending her bra purchase – a whole bunch of bras – to my address via one of those gigantic shopping platforms I will not mention here because in principle I don’t support them even if I too, occasionally, use them. She did this because she was tired and y’know, scroll, click without really looking, and oops! She was traveling and doing and life-ing; it can get confusing at times; my address is one she sends shit to once in a while, so it was in the queue. Having received a box of bras (did she mean them for me? oh, nope, not even close to my size!), I then waited until she was done traveling, or almost done, and putting the bras in a fresh box, sent them to her at her NYC address.
Well. That was almost two weeks ago. The box of bras, being sent from glamorous Nieuw Kingstone, have been to Newburgh, 10199 in NYC, 10024 in NYC (her zip code but wait, we’re not done), back to 10199 (a distribution center in midtown, something I didn’t realize I needed to know) back to 10024 out for delivery, then forwarded to 10021 (who TF knows why), back to 10199, out for delivery again yesterday in 10024, and now, this morning, at yet another USPS distribution center as yet unidentified (please lord, make it in Manhattan, and not the Bronx).
Here’s the thing. Certified prick Louis DeJoy is still running the USPS, after having been appointed by You-Know-Who. DeJoy and his co-hort of conservative cranks want to turn the oldest, most trusted U.S. institution (founded by Ben Franklin, for crying out loud) into a true and total understaffed and funded shit-show in order to go private because all that $$$$ going into upgrading infrastructure and buildings, pensions and decent wages for postal workers (who take a lot of shit), is making them crazy, making them drool, making them get hard over the only thing they think matters: cash.
Ideally, these creeps would like to privatize the education systems, water systems, and all other major public systems in this country because they see an opportunity not to serve the public but rather to squeeze the public. Many water systems in the U.K. were privatized during the long series of Tory governments; it was sold to the public as potentially ‘more efficient’, promising ‘better service’; it has been anything but. When private hands take over public good, cutting costs to maximize profits to private persons/shareholders (full disclosure, I have money in the stock market), the people suffer. Beaches in the U.K. have been inundated with untreated sewage thanks to ‘more efficient’ water and sewer services, but – and you can bet on this – not in posh communities.
An area where private interests are making inroads, increasing suffering in the U.S.? Prisons. Private entities are being given or ‘awarded’ communication contracts, reducing opportunities for families to have in-person visits with incarcerated parents, husbands, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers; these private companies streamline the ‘communication process’, limiting contacts to video consoles or phones that cost the users, very often the poorest and least able among us, big bucks to maintain relationships with their incarcerated family member.
Deep breaths. Regardless, I am hopeful the well-traveled and truly sophisticated box of bras will get to my darling pal sometime soon. Please. Put-leeeeeeze.
Aaaaaaaand: we have an update…the very well-traveled bras – two MORE trips to 10022 before another stop at 10199 and then, bah-boom, out for delivery in 10024 again and then – you’re kidding me, right? 10022 again and 10199 again and then, finally today, she got ’em (I made her text me a photo). Life is good. And, not for nothing, as she and I are both into astrology, yesterday (I am approximately a month in advance with my posts, generally, because I do not like to feel rushed!!) – yesterday Mercury went direct, so next time, maybe don’t send anything during Mercury Retrograde? From start to finish, it took from the 5th of August to the 28th. LOL.