My husband mail ordered coffee for his coffeemaker on Feb. 3. On Feb. 9 he received an email from the vendor. Tracking showed the package was at the post office, but my husband hadn’t received a package pick-up slip.

He went to the Silverthorne Post Office, the clerk said he had to go to the Dillon Post Office because Silverthorne doesn’t handle packages anymore.

So he went to the Dillon Post Office, and the clerk said, “We have thousands of boxes we haven’t sorted through. Chances are it will be delivered soon.”

About a week and half later, my husband told me he returned to Dillon Post Office and he was told the package was delivered to Silverthorne. (Remember they don’t handle packages anymore?) 

When he got to the Silverthorne Post Office, the clerk looked up the tracking number and claimed UPS was supposed to deliver it, but it never arrived. (Remember the vendor said the package was delivered to the post office more than a week before.)

So my husband called the coffee vendor, and told the story to the representative on the phone. The company sent him a replacement order that arrived in two days via UPS. The rep. said if the first order ever shows up, just keep it.

Thank goodness it was only coffee. This story is being repeated in many Summit County households and the issues are far more serious. People are not receiving their prescription medicines, and important date-sensitive papers.

Fortunately, we’re retired and have time for this kind of nonsense. I know a lot of people working two and three jobs, and they’re lucky to have time to make dinner. 

Let’s not get upset with our local fellow workers, instead let’s focus on the source of the problem.

Republicans would like you to think otherwise, but the fact is they are anti-government. Forbes lays out how they plan to cut your Social Security and Medicare. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but the postal service is a government agency. This agency is run by Republican Louis DeJoy.

You might remember he was at the helm during the pandemic doing everything he could to slow down the mail, to stop the mailed ballots which were broadly assumed to be from Democratic voters. Remember he-who-must-not-be-named urging supporters to vote in person? You know who I’m talking about, Mr. Find-me-just-11,000-more-votes.

What I’m saying is, we will continue to have these annoying issues, like “where’s my coffee?,” until we begin to talk with each other and turn off those who create polarizing fake political agendas. Poor mail service is just another casualty of polarized government.

I know an Ivy League-educated person, really smart, who believes as “Mother Tucker” (Tucker Carlson) put out last week, that Jan. 6 was a sightseeing day. Nope.

For the record, The Associated Press reported in January that more than 930 cases have been brought against the insurrectionists. Of those charged, 538 people pled guilty. People don’t plead guilty to sightseeing.

Conservatives would like you to believe these prosecutions have been one-sided. On a Sunday talk show I heard a Republican congresswoman claim no one had been prosecuted for Black Lives Matter crimes. USA Today reviewed police records and found more than 14,000 people were arrested.

It’s true that Property Claim Services estimated BLM protest damage across various cities totaled about $2 billion. It’s also true that the Architect of the Capitol estimated Jan. 6 damage to the Capitol to be about $1.5 billion.

What does this tell us about the problem with our mail? There is a Republican core that is anti-government, and surveys say they condone violence to disrupt our government. They hope you’ll get so sick of the dysfunction, instead of holding them to account, you’ll let them privatize your postal service, and make another fat cat rich.

If you want to fix our roads, get our mail, and get back to sensible bipartisan government we need to put polarizing people in the rearview mirror and elect people who pledge to work together for the common good, not some right or left wing agenda. Here’s the really bad news: My husband ordered new slippers. He didn’t notice at checkout they are being shipped U.S. mail. Oh well, maybe they’ll show up with the first order of coffee … by Christmas.

Susan Knopf’s column “For the Record” publishes biweekly on Fridays in the Summit Daily News. Knopf lives in Silverthorne. She is a certified ski instructor and an award-winning journalist. Contact her at sdnknopf@gmail.com.