Respect Authority

Where’s Kevin Costner when you need him?

I guess that’s not a question we ask ourselves very often - since who ever needs (or even wants) Kevin Costner? But with the nation’s postmaster general announcing this week that huge deficits may force the post office to drop a day of mail delivery each week, it seems Kevin Costner may be the new Jack Bauer. 

Indeed, postmaster general John Potter said Wednesday that the post office was nearly $3 billion in the red last year, and asked lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week. The ousted day may not even be obvious-choice Saturday, but a weekday with typically light delivery. 

So why am I looking for Kevin you ask? Well, in the year 2013, civilization will have all but destroyed itself. After a war decimates the government, most of the nation’s population will strugle to survive against starvation and rogue groups of armed men. One such group will be called the Holnists, and their leader, General Bethlehehm, will have delusions of running the country. A drifter (Kev) will be captured by said group and forced to join. He’ll escape at first chance, and happen upon a mail jeep with a skeleton in it. In the interest of keeping warm, he’ll don the skeleton’s cozy postal uniform, after which he will find a mailbag and begin delivering old letters, thereby restoring hope to small cities throughout the nation. 

Eventually he gets inspired, takes down the Holnists and restores faith in America, but that’s besides the point. The point is that in 1997, Kevin Costner promised us that when the apocalypse comes, someone will still be delivering the mail. And I expect that promise to be kept. Just like I expect him to lead me to land when the polar ice caps melt and the Earth’s surface is covered in water and one-eyed Dennis Hoppers.