DeJoy to the world: stamp it

By BRUCE LOWITT

In his nearly three years as Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy has managed to mangle the United States Postal Service more than all his predecessors put together, dating back to Benjamin Franklin in 1775. Mr. DeJoy cut back the number of employees and mail-sorting machines, barred carriers from making extra trips to get letters and packages to recipients on time and generally slowed the delivery of mail.

Mr. DeJoy recently sat down for an interview to discuss how a former major Republican Party donor and fundraiser for then-President Donald Trump landed a job paying $305,681 a year after serving for three years as a Southwest Airlines baggage handler.

Q: Did you …

A: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to answer your question.

Q: This isn’t a courtroom and you’re not on trial. So …

A: In that case, f*** you.

Q: Nice. Do you kiss your wife and children with that mouth?

A: Who the …

Q: Good. Now that we have your attention, how did you get your job as postmaster general?

A: Didn’t you read the introduction to this Q&A? Major donor. Big-time fundraiser for Donald Trump. That’s how just about everyone got a job in his administration. Well, that or consensual sex. Or non-consensual if it was a way of – okay I’m not going to go there.

Q: Is the postal service in a better place than it was when you assumed control?

A: Wait. What? Did someone move it? The last time I was in my office, back in November I think, it was somewhere near the National Mall.

Q: November? Where have you been since then?

A: Well, it’s important that we see how other postal systems operate, so I study them in Paris and Monaco and the Cayman Islands and Geneva and Bellagio. Not in Las Vegas. The one in Italy near Lake Como. Hey, did you know George Clooney has a place …

Q: Fine, but what did you find out?

A: It’s got twenty-five rooms and an outdoor theater and …

Q: No, about the places you studied.

A: They have very pretty stamps.

Q: Back to the original question, whether the postal service is better than it was.

A: Absolutely. We’re saving a shitload of money because our policies are causing more people to use Fedex and UPS and DHL – and, by the way, the stock I own in those companies is really paying off – and that’s enabling us to cut payroll by firing thousands of workers and reselling their mail pouches as designer handbags. And all our mail trucks with the steering wheels on the right side? Barbados and Jamaica and Grenada and Antigua and a lot of other dumpy little countries down there that drive on the wrong side of the road are gobbling them up to use as taxis. We’re making out like bandits.

Q: Then why are you raising the price of a first-class stamp to sixty-six cents in July?

A: Do you know how much one costs now? No. Practically nobody does. Nobody buys one stamp. They ask for a dozen or a book of them, we say how much it costs, they pay it and that’s that. Besides, who else makes United States postage stamps? Nobody. We own the franchise. So we’ve got ’em by the …

Q: But aren’t you concerned more people are going to start texting instead of mailing letters and cards?

A: What’s testing?

Q: Texting.

A: What’s that?

Q: Never mind. A federal judge in Texas has ruled that abortion medication can’t be sent through the mail. If the Supreme Court agrees, how will the postal service deal with it?

A: We’ll be opening any package going to a house where a woman lives or is visiting.

Q: But …

A: And we’re also going to prohibit getting an abortion by mail. We’re going to make sure women can’t mail themselves to states where it’s legal.

Q: What? How …

A: We’re working on it.