The Numbers Racket

For many years the United States Post Office has sought to pare away some of its perennial indebtedness by decreasing the flow of love notes, letters to grand-children, inquiries after health and other worthwhile pieces of first-class mail while fostering the insidious growth of gaudy packets addressed to "Occupant Apartment 3A," subscription come-ons to magazines that die even before the enclosed blank can be returned, plastic Christmas cards from liquor stores and similar abominations that have been assigned the hubristic rank of third-class mail.

Now, at last, the Post Office--too clever by half--seems to be on the verge of hoisting itself on its own little game of petard. True, no greater number of firstclass letters will flow through the mails (the rates increase to five cents as of the first of January), but at least no one need ever receive another piece of junk mail. Nemesis in this instance is a curious little figure named Mr.Zip. Mr.Zip is five little numbers that secretaries of giant from firms are supposed to be able to put on hundreds of useless envelopes to speed them on their senseless way.

Well and bad, you say? Ah, but consider this: if the secretaries get so much as one of the five numbers wrong, the corporation's coupons go zipping off to the Great Beyond and can never reach their intended Occupants. For, since every one of the numbers means something, a mistake can never be detected. And, since secretaries hate numbers, mistakes will multiply like fruitflies.

Zip-uh-de-doodah.