Post No. 112: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Last month, a postal worker here in town found a poorly hand-written envelope addressed to God, with excessive postage.

He opened it and discovered it was from an elderly lady, distressed because a thief had robbed her of $100. She anticipated being cold and hungry for the month of April, if she did not receive some divine intervention.

The worker organized a collection amongst the other postal workers, who dug deep, and came up with $96. They delivered it to the lady by special courier the same morning.

A week later, the postal worker recognized the same hand-writing on another envelope. He opened it and found the following:

"Dear God: Thank you for the $100. This month would have been so bleak without it.

“P.S. Just to let you know, it was $4 short, which I strongly suspect was taken by those slacker government employees over at the Post Office."

Most of you probably did not realize that the Logistician was a Postal Service employee when not working with us here at the Institute. He collected the money for the woman, only to have the beneficiary of his good will attribute her good fortune to a deity, instead of a government agency.

Earlier this month, he suffered from depression and was not in the best of spirits. He constantly whined about all the government had done for people for so long, delivering their mail through rain, sleet, and snow.

He felt, quite simply, unappreciated.

It was his idea to start this blog. He quickly realized that he would not be able to get his message out alone, and joined forces with the Laughingman of the Institute for Applied Common Sense. Shortly thereafter, all content generated was done so under the auspices of the Institute. (In fact, we will soon change the name of the blog to “Applied Common Sense.”)

During his year here at the Institute, he was branded a liberal, a moderate, a conservative, a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, a good Christian, an atheist, an anarchist, a progressive, a moron, an imbecile, too serious, too flippant, and on many occasions, just plain stupid. None of the labels actually apply, with the possible exception of “stupid.”

Each time that he received what he considered to be “constructive criticism,’ he tried to alter his approach and dance to the music of the crowd. Each time it met with more criticism.

He was warned that the stressors connected with his Postal Service job, coupled with being the brunt of much criticism here at the Institute, might affect him psychologically.

After some frustration, especially trying to serve as referee between all of the warring factions, he decided to adopt another persona, and become a clown. He considered becoming Clarabelle or perhaps Benny Hill.

And then something else occurred to him.

You see, the Logistician has never been married. In fact, some of his friends say that scientists are still trying to determine the type of woman in whom he is interested. He has also been accused of being interested in “all women.”

His response each time was that if he wanted to dance and ride a roller-coaster on regular basis, and wonder how the people with whom he was interacting on a daily basis would respond to him, he need simply join the carnival, and get paid for it.

Additionally, he always found it odd that those ideologically oriented to yell at the top of their lungs about “individual freedom,” and the need to ensure against government infringement, are the ones most inclined to support the institution of marriage, where a substantial number of freedoms are eliminated.

However, being the Logistician, he tried to make this past year a positive, learning experience,which brings us to this point of notifying you that there are going to be a couple of changes here at the Institute.

First of all, the Logistician is no longer with us.

He has begun a 3 year sabbatical in Brazil, focusing on the marital institution. More specifically, his research will delve into whether arranged, traditional marriages, orchestrated by family or tribal members, is preferable to those serendipitous relationships marked by that nebulous concept called “lust.”

He will conclude his research and travels with a marital ceremony in the Amazonian port city of Manaus, once he has selected a female research partner, who is interested in working with us here at the Institute.

Until further notice, we, Punch and Judy, will be taking the Logistician’s place. His shoes will be difficult to fill. However, we have extensive experience in stirring things up and “manhandling” difficult subjects.

We look forward to receiving your comments responsive to our thoughts. Just don’t try to “jerk our strings.”