When I was growing up on a small wheat farm in Kansas, employment by the postal service struck me as venerable. One of my best friends was the daughter of the postmaster in the small town where I attended middle school, and with my limited socioeconomic awareness I viewed their resulting middle-class stability as “rich.” Once I owed my friend a bit of change and for some reason mailed the few coins to her in a stamped envelope. The next time I saw her postmaster father, he shook his head and told me the lumpy envelope had been shredded as it passed through processing equipment intended for flat letters.

Never having seen a mail-sorting machine, I misunderstood his explanation and thought