A “peeve” is of course a minor annoyance that someone finds particularly irritating. The word originates from the 14th century “peyvesshe,” which meant “perverse or capricious.” “Pet peeve” was popularized by cartoonist, Frank King, in the early 20th century.
I’m not particularly peeved this morning, but one glance at the headlines suggests an immediate retreat, or shall we say, “strategic withdrawal” to humor. Humor in some form is going to be increasingly vital to our mental health in the days to come, now that the Overton window has been shattered and a beguiled public is saturated in gaslit fallacy.
Thus we will reserve our mocking of the headlines today for our small group of friends who we observe to be still possessed of their rationality. Instead we shall focus on peeves that are common to most, if not all of us. God knows we need something upon which we can all agree.
Let’s begin with a peeve that is increasingly shared by those of us who depend on the Post Office for rural deliveries, and state categorically that this does not include the fine, devoted employees and carriers who are our friends and neighbors. No, our annoyance is reserved exclusively for the Postmaster General whose stated policy is to make the Post Office more efficient by increasing prices, reducing services, and prioritizing high traffic (urban) areas.
My package left Texas on a Monday and on the same day, it arrived in Palmetto, Georgia at the now-famous USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Center. The next day it was moved to Atlanta. On Wednesday, it went back to Palmetto and on that same day, it returned to Atlanta. On Thursday, the package traveled to Palmetto again, where it rested for two more days. On Saturday it managed to escape all that processing and distributing, was transferred back to Atlanta where it hitched a ride on a truck bound for Hiawassee.
In observing the journey of my package according to official USPS tracking information, and in consideration of the fact that my package took a single day to travel 900 miles, four days to escape the Palmetto-Atlanta oscillation, then another day to go the final 100 miles for delivery, I can only conclude that the definition of the word “efficient” has changed.
Perhaps the extra days were required for my parcel to become part of the “high traffic” in the urban area between Atlanta and Palmetto and thus to become prioritized.
I can almost see many of you nodding in agreement. Given time, I’m sure we could discover a lot of common peeving ground: The driver who rides your bumper when you’re already exceeding the speed limit, the shopper who blocks half the aisle with her cart and the other half with her person, the unbreakable plastic that now surrounds most of the items we purchase, the appliance that breaks the week after the warranty runs out.
There is probably an endless list of pet peeves we have in common, and that list is dwarfed by the list common to our humanity, all that we share as sons and daughters, parents and grandparents, people who love our friends and families and want peace and prosperity for our children.
The efforts to divide us and sow discord in this election year are formidable. Aside from faith, humor is our best defense against them, for as Thomas Moore observed in the 16th century, “The devil, the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked.”
Outside The Box 