Digital know-how has spawned crackerjack gizmos, oh boy; but we must note growing disenchantment.  The scaffolding we’ve erected is getting rickety.

The center, for example, often no longer holds, and mere chaos is loosed upon the post office.  When I stopped by the other day, all the credit and debit card gizmos were down, so all transactions had to be cash.  Fortunately, the computers were still ticking, since even the smallest sale now requires one.  They were sluggish, though, so the line was slow.  The coin-operated stamp machines have been removed, replaced by machines that vend in bulk by credit card, so the only choice was to join the lengthening line, and hope the computers didn’t sputter out entirely.  Or to do as I did, and buy stamps at the newsstand down the block.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)