As we welcome December, it isn’t lost on me that this month is the busiest time of the year for the post office. It is also strikingly clear to me that the United States Postal Service is broken, that it doesn’t work the way it should, and if I were President-Elect Obama, I could curry instant favor with the American people by fixing it.

There was a time when the postal service was very good at what it did – deliver the mail. It even had a catchy creed, something like “through wind and snow the letter will be delivered.” But then the special interest crowd found out it was easy picking, and unions, minorities and other pariahs got hold of what was supposed to be a “service.”

I was in our community post office the other morning and the line was seven-deep. What’s worse, it took one woman an exceptionally long time to count out her pennies so, as we all stood there, it was learned the station is “forbidden” to have more than one clerk up front because the post office is trying “to save money.”

Are you kidding me? To begin, the post office is owned by you and me. Yes, that may be a stretch, when you look at how we are allowing so many needs to go unmet and have some new neighborhoods that need a local branch badly.

Just as importantly, I have been a customer of the post office for over 50 years - back when I started writing love letters, believe it or not – and have yet to meet one post office employee, not even one, who I don’t adore. The place is bulging with the greatest people you ever met, but the bozos who it, who sit in the back rooms and think of ways to antagonize the rank-and-file, need to move to the next town with the circus.

What’s going to happen when you have a line of “owners” that is 10-deep two weeks before Christmas and the clowns say no, only one clerk is available? That’s not saving money, that’s coming down with an often-serious disease called “stupid” that will get you transferred to Duluth. Minn., as a “snow walker.”

Let a genius postmaster like that go door-to-door with a 50-pound mail pouch in minus-20 degree weather and, trust me, by 3 p.m. the first day he’ll come up with what is politely called a “better business plan.”

I can help Obama become a star in a hurry using the post office as my template. Look at our economy and we have a record number of people – good and decent people – who are out of work. It isn’t their fault and they have children to feed, medicine to buy for aging parents and so forth. Lord, it will break your heart.

So they go down to the unemployment office and get a check that isn’t enough, all the while scrambling to do anything to raise an extra buck or two. My plan is to capture such lightening in a jar!

I’d get those who are physically and mentally able and expedite their checks, but I would also add a special supplement if they were willing to work 40 hours a week instead of sitting on their sofa watching “The Price Is Right.” Trust me, you get tired of deer hunting and playing golf in a hurry and this way those out of a job could actually make modest ends meet.

Well, they’d have to sign a waiver where they would behave, not become union revolutionaries and “do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.” Worse, if they got caught stealing or being evil, there would be a straight-to-jail clause, none of this “first offender” or probation rubbish. They would also lose benefits for life.

That said, I would take all these unemployed people and give them jobs with the government that would equate to just over minimum wage. I would encourage and urge them to get better-paying jobs and I would put in educational provisions, but to heck with just giving them a free check the third of each month.

If a man works for a check there is some pride that goes with that. And, yes sir, everybody gets drug-tested because I’ve got some other ideas how we can overcome that plague. That’s a story for another day.

All I am saying is let’s harness the world’s most amazing work force when so many people who are part of it are struggling. Not only could we fix the post office for very little money – remember, we’re using their unemployment benefits as part of the compensation package – but they’ll be able to pay car notes, electric bills and the like.

Best of all, the post office would once again be a cheerful place, a place where there are no lines and you can chat with “your” clerk about their cancer treatments, why the best hitters in baseball seem to lose their swing every August, and what the newest stamps look like.

Meanwhile, our backroom “Scrooge,” the dunce who once decreed only one clerk should handle the public, would be crunching door-to-door in that Duluth ice, the wind howling and the mean dogs growling and the pouch getting heavier by the minute, all the while wondering why he ever did anything so stupid.

royexum@aol.com