16/12/2002 - 11:22 a.m.

So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow

Hmph, math final schmath final. I'm waiting for the post. I've waited a patient four days, and now I'm getting antsy. I've tried to memorise truth tables and forumulae, I really have, but I can't concentrate. I keep glancing at the clock, wondering if the post will come early today, wondering if my hopes are to be granted or dashed.

So much depends on a letter, a piece of paper put in the trust and care of the government conveying hopes, dreams, wishes, and news. Why do we trust the government to carry our dreams when we don't trust them to educate our children or help us in our old age? We blindly, blithely pay our 37 cents and send off our letters with every assurance they reach their destinations.

That's an amazing sort of trust. It's taken as a given, like the trust that there will be air to breathe tomorrow, because there will be, we know that. But the trust that a letter will arrive at a specific location, considering the vastness of the postal system and amount of things that could go wrong, to trust in that system borders on the bizarre.

And yet we do. We trust the post office in a way that we probably don't trust our relatives to return Tupperware.

Today, I'm driven distracted hoping that my trust is not compromised.