We need to talk about something. Come a little closer, I’m not sure if I want anyone hearing this. You never know who might be listening. I think I’m onto something and I need to share it in case… in case something happens to me.

You weren’t followed were you? No? You’re sure, right?

Ok, then. Think about this. Think about the post office. My only experience of the postal service has been with our beloved Canada Post, so I’m going to tell you what I know about them. I don’t know for sure, but I think that this may apply to postal organizations outside of our frosty northern home – in fact I don’t actually know that national postal services really exist, aren’t actually just part of one larger, global, mail delivery mega-structure. But here’s what I know about Canada Post.

Let’s start with what I know about being a mailman. You go to work – not too early. You check in and get your mail, then you head out on your route. You spend your day walking around, breathing the air, dropping off small envelopes and colourful flyers. In the summer, you can wear shorts and a t-shirt. In the winter, you can bundle up in your warmest wools and wicking fabrics. In new neighbourhoods you don’t even have to go door to door, you just drive your van up to the neighbourhood super-mailbox and unload. You largely spend your days outside, walking about, enjoying the fine air. You don’t really deal with customers. You are your own man. This is what I have learned.

Sounds idyllic, right? Right. We could close this file right here were it not for one thing. Every mailman I’ve ever encountered hates their job. Hates their job. From the scowling, shouting, angry man who takes our office mail, jams it into the mail slot and hits it until it bursts through, spraying all over the floor, to the scowling, snarling man who fills my own suburban super-mailbox, to the one postal employee that I actually know, they all hate their jobs.

What could be the matter?

When some people see a disconnect like this, they walk away. They turn a blind eye, smile blissfully, and stride off. They know that they’d probably rather not see the underside of the rock in question and, dismissing the thought, resume their daily lives. No wiser, but no less happy. But me, I can’t leave this stuff alone.

So I’ve been doing some digging. I’ve been talking to some people, making some inquiries, lurking in some bushes. And now I’ve developed a theory.

I believe, hazy nomads, that I have stumbled upon the sinister secret of the postal world’s puzzling ennui. I can’t disclose my sources, of course, and I expect Canada Post to deny this to somebody’s grave, theirs, mine or other, but this is what I believe, nay, know to be true.

Standby for enlightenment.

Each day, at the start of the day, before the nation’s postal workers can be sent forth into the world, their bags of unaddressed admail bulging, the posties are all gathered in a room. A cool, concrete, windowless room – no smoking allowed – to be addressed. And each day, each tall, imposing, impossible day, before those peaceful-hearted delivery people can issue forth into the world to deliver their time-insensitive charges, Canada Post Corporation tells them all one thing.

One true thing.

Each day it’s something new – but each day the employees of Canada Post are told one truth about the world in which they live. One terrible, unknowable, undeniable truth, to cloud their day with sickness, loom over their thoughts like tombstones and ensure that their frivolous spring-day duties are carried out as though by Satan’s own suffering minions.

Every day, no matter how much they wish not to, our fearless letter carriers must learn something new. Each day the loudspeakers boom and digital projectors beam the truth onto white brick walls and those intrepid soldiers of the delivery business become wiser.

At great personal risk, I’ve managed to collect a small sample of the nuggets of wisdom that are daily distributed. Taste their poison rock candy flavour if you dare:

• Cancer is becoming the norm.
• Privacy is a quaint concept from the past. Somewhere out there is a trail of evidence that can reveal all of your dark secrets, if someone ever decides to take a look.
• Most of the things you eat and drink in a given day are on the list of expressly forbidden foods for pregnant mothers. But don’t bother trying to adjust your diet – today, even Eskimos living thousands of miles from civilization and eating only wild game have dangerous levels of unnatural chemicals in their bodies.
• If you stop making payments, the bank will take all of your stuff.
  Cellphones may or may not give you brain tumours, but it doesn’t matter because most of the people you know are required by their employers to carry one, so there’s no point worrying about it.
• Antibiotics are becoming less and less effective.

What a great way to start your day, hey? Well, now you know – don’t tell anyone I told you. And when your dark scowling postman next arrives, letters angrily jabbing, their eyes all shadowed and sagging, smile at them sadly, clap them on the shoulder and let their darkness pass. They know things that you don’t have to.