Deliver Me from Delivering

On religious freedoms, the post office & living your stupid truth.

Every day my mailman/letter carrier/postal officer/distributor of Talbots catalogs risks his life delivering my mail. If my dog managed to break out, he would kill him. He’s a total psychopath. When I buy him stuffies, he eats the face off first like he’s Hannibal Lecter.

That’s why I thank God I don’t live in rural Pennsylvania. Fine, there are SEVERAL reasons I’m grateful I don’t live in rural Pennsylvania. One of which is…Sunday mail.

If you haven’t heard of Gerald Groff, he’s a former postal worker in Amish country (fun!) who is claiming religious discrimination against the Post Office in a lawsuit now being heard by the Supreme Court. Gerald is a devout Christian who says he was not allowed to observe the Christian Sabbath on Sundays and was punished by his employer because, you know, he wasn’t doing his job. That’s usually the reason you get fired. Or for hoarding all the Chex Mix from the break room.

For 10 years now, the postal service has delivered packages on Sunday because of Amazon and its greedy prime members, which means all of us should be named in the lawsuit as well. What, like I can wait three days for my new hot pink Hydro Flask?

Groff told his employers that he couldn’t deliver packages on the Lord’s Day. Oh, come on. Don’t blame the Lord for your weak work ethic, Gerald. Meanwhile the post office is arguing that if they had allowed Gerald to take off every Sunday, it would result in an “unreasonable burden” on his coworkers. No doubt. I imagine his fellow postal workers couldn’t wait to tie him up with duct tape and rolls of Forever stamps and cram him in his locker.

One of Groff’s attorneys is Hiram Sasser of the First Liberty Institute, which is a Christian conservative law firm representing both wronged mailmen and one-third of the Holy Trinity. Apparently they hosted a livestream of the proceedings Tuesday but the photo looks more like they’re promoting the new season of Dancing with the Stars. “And on deck is former postal worker Gerald Groff performing a daring Paso Doble with his partner, Jeremy Samek!”

According to Hiram, Christian employees and common folk have to “climb Mount Kilimanjaro to try to win one of their cases.” I have no idea what that means but I’d like to see it happen. Preferably in a special USPS “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” docuseries.