On Thursday evening, as midtown Manhattan was still recovering from the devastation Our Rulers — sorry, Superstorm Sandy wreaked, I met my husband after work. He wanted to head for Federal Express before going to dinner; they normally pick up envelopes at his office, but they had temporarily suspended that service.
We’d visited FedEx many times before, whenever my husband needed something to arrive overnight but hadn’t finished it before the last pick-up at his office. Yet we had never seen so many folks clogging the place — standing in line, addressing packing slips, scooping up supplies. Fortunately, we were able to drop his package on a very large outgoing pile and escape the pandemonium.
Next morning, the client called to confirm that the documents had arrived. As my husband was marveling at FedEx’s efficiency despite the crowds and enormous demand, another client called. This lady runs several residential buildings in a neighborhood Sandy had inundated. She was beside herself, because the rent from her hundreds of tenants was due, yet she’d received no mail since before the hurricane. She finally called the Post Office, which had also flooded. The clerk told her there was no mail for her. Why? Because Sandy had soaked it, so the Post Office threw it away.
6:26 pm on November 3, 2012
