In an effort to reduce the rampant abuse of their quasi-public infrastructure, the United States Postal Service has begun a campaign of disguising their letterboxes as objects completely unrelated to the delivery of parcel post.
    The controversial decision to camouflage the mailboxes was made by current USPS Inspector General, David C. Williams, when letter carriers lodged formal complaints that despite daily attempts to clean the letterboxes of their content, careless citizens continued placing all sorts of paper in them.
    ”We know who they are,” stated David Williams when asked about these miscreants, “to a man they’ve all left their names and addresses on this.. this.. crap.” Shaking a hand full of crumpled paper, Mr. Williams continued, “its like some kind of protest. They aren’t even trying to hide their identity. But even so, we simply don’t have the manpower to do anything against such an organized and widespread movement.”
    Embarking upon a policy built upon the original premise that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure*, the Inspector General has authorized the most sweeping form of mass camouflage ever attempted by a semi-governmental entity. Mailboxes have seemingly begun to disappear from the urban landscape, replaced by cacti, large boxes of chocolates, miniature nuclear missile silos, and even Sidney Poitier squatting over a spilled Caramel Latte.
    It isn’t at all clear that the program has been successful. “You’d be surprised at how many people think its appropriate to feed a droid like R2D2 a handful of utility bills.” But despite this, the program goes on in hopes that it might eventually stem the tide of worthless paper.
    So the next time you are at a bus stop, and find yourself standing next to what looks to be Bilbo Baggins hiding under a small writing desk, look twice. The postman always does.**
* Not so original as all that, Mr. Williams also believes that a Bird in Hand Saves Nine.
** I express my regrets. Cheers!