The latest thing to experience Sudden-Polarization Syndrome is the Post Office, because Trump wants to weld the boxes shut to keep people from voting by mail, or something. Young resisters are flocking to the USPS’s defense, as if it’s the sclerotic-institutional version of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I too love my post office, a little embassy from 1962. Cheerful staff, but it’s a dumpy and careworn place. There is a TV set in the corner by the ceiling, like they had in bars in the ’50s. It plays upbeat videos about all the things you can do at the post office, and exciting new stamps coming up. (I like to buy the “forever” stamps, which at least are honest about how long it will take the letter to arrive.) The TV has a VHS recorder attached, which was up to date in the Clinton years but now makes you wonder if they throw the sacks of mail in a stagecoach and crack a whip. HEE-ya!

Nevertheless, it’s an invaluable part of our society, right? Eh. Nothing interesting arrives in my mailbox anymore. Every day the carrier has to walk up a long flight of stairs while my dog expresses murderous rage, all so the carrier can deliver one (1) piece of mail. Yesterday it was an offer from a cremation society. The day before, a letter from a realtor wanting to buy my house. The day before that, something from the university wanting to know if they were in our will. I hate to look out the window when I hear the mailbox clank shut lest I see the delivery person with a scythe over his shoulder instead of a pouch.

Nevertheless, it’s the key to our democracy’s survival! We have to vote by mail because going to the polling place during a pandemic is like crossing a croc-filled moat. Really? Here’s what happened the last time I voted in the local primary.

I was handed a pen and assured it had been disinfected. Good, because in the general election some distraught people may see Trump’s name on the ballot and stab their eyes out with the pen, thus contracting COVID.

Then I walked to a table where the voter-registration logs were kept. An X made of blue tape on the floor six feet from the table indicated where I should stand, lest I suddenly explode like a spore pod and cast germs everywhere. (Studies show that if you do explode from COVID, the germs go only five feet, eleven inches, then drop to the ground and die on impact.)

“Do I flip you my ID from here, like Oddjob?” I said, because people who vote in the middle of the afternoon are old enough to get 1964 James Bond–movie references.

“We don’t need your ID,” said the clerk. Ah. Right. All they needed was my name, and then they asked my address, like the Sphinx posing a real stumper to Oedipus. If name and address matched, I was me. Foolproof, that.

A piece of paper was printed out, and I leaned over to sign it. Everyone at the table reared back, because we now instinctively treat everyone as if they have buzzard-melting halitosis. I gave the piece of paper to someone at another table, and he gave me the ballot with his bare hand. I was tempted to lick the ballot, then fall on the floor complaining of a Lew Grade Fever.

“Don’t you mean low-grade?”

“No, I mean Lew Grade, the British media mogul. Google it. A Lew Grade Fever is a persistent yearning to see Raise the Titanic, which he produced. It’s not a good movie but I’m a big Titanic fan, so.”

“Should we call the ambulance?”

“Oh, I doubt they have a copy. But if they do, and it’s VHS, I’ll meet them at the post office.”

After I filled out the ballot, I walked across the empty gym to insert it into the scanner. The ballot was rejected, perhaps because the scanner could not believe I didn’t vote for the person everyone else in my neighborhood voted for.

“Try this machine,” said a volunteer.

“Is that the one that counts your vote but doesn’t report it, so if they need more in a close race they can turn up unreported ballots? Ha, ha! Just kidding.” It ate my ballot and I gave him my pen, which went into a bucket of bleach. Outside I was hosed down with Lysol and my clothes were set on fire, just to be safe.

The turnout for the primary was quite high, so a lot of people were able to vote in the accustomed manner. No one’s saying that the elderly and infirm should be shoved into community centers and forced to stand in line with goopy-nosed people who have a 102 fever. Yes, some can vote by mail. But there are people who are not immunocompromised and are just afraid to leave the house.

Also, going to vote, like, in person, with pens and stuff, is work. Voting by mail is easy! Except then you have to find a “stamp,” whatever those are, and you have to find one of those boxes, and really, who has the time? Is there, like, Uber for voting? Because that would be great. You call up the app, someone comes by, gets your vote, and mails it.

Anyway, the Post Office isn’t going away, because it’s in the Constitution, and if you don’t fund it completely the skeleton of Ben Franklin claws its way out of the dirt and cries in anguish. Then he votes “D.,” because he’s dead.