My mailman is a freak. Sorry, “mail carrier.” Whatever the politically correct term, he’s a freak. And, fortunately, he’s not my mailman anymore. They moved his route a couple blocks over, and now he’s my buddy’s mailman. And he’s still a freak.

After putting up with the postal service in Mexico for 15 years, I was excited by the idea of being able to send checks in the mail and of my mail actually being delivered on time (or at all!). I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have to worry about giving the mailman a tip on “el día del cartero” or worry about what happen if I didn’t give him one.

But there was something that I had forgotten: in the United States, mailmen go postal.

I had several run-ins with my mail carrier during his stint on my block. We have one of those old-fashioned mail slots up on the porch, and on more than one occasion, I happened to be out front when the mailman came walking up to my house. On more than one occasion, I extended my hand to him and said, “I’ll take that for you,” and on more than one occasion he completely ignored me, hiked up the front steps and shoved the mail through the slot.

One time in particular, I was out front smoking a cigarette (I have since quit the filthy habit, I assure you) when the mailman came along. When I offered to take the mail from him, not only did he refuse to give it to me, he also waved his hand in front of his nose as if I were assaulting him with the smoke from my cigarette. “What? I can’t even smoke on my own property?” I shouted at him as he marched off to the next house. He ignored me, of course.

I wanted to say something more, but the thought that this was the man who was responsible for the delivery of important documents, love letters and Netflix, I decided to hold my tongue. I thought about writing a letter to his supervisor (I’m pretty good at writing letters), but I figured that if I got him in trouble with his boss, not only might he chose to throw away my mail, he might go postal on me.

There is a reason why “going postal” is synonymous with “losing it,” especially in the case of workplace rage. Since 1983, over 40 people have been murdered by disgruntled postal workers in the U.S. I did not want be another statistic. I decided to take the Christian route and to live and let live; but I still thought my mailman was a freak.

Then one day, a different mailman appeared at my house as I stood out front, smoking a cigarette. I flicked the butt to the ground, and gingerly approached him. “I’ll take that for you,” I meekly smiled. “Do you live here?” he asked. I nodded, he smiled, and handed over the stack of mail. The same mail carrier has been delivering to my house ever since.

However, a friend of mine who lives a few blocks away is not so lucky. As I picked him up to go to the gym recently, he was flustered. “My mailman is a freak!” he said. He explained to me that he hadn’t received any mail in over a week; he had, however, received a message in his mailbox from his new mailman claiming that my friend’s mailbox violated U.S. Postal Service standards because it was too far away from the street, and that he would not deliver my friend’s mail until he moved the mailbox to a proper location. Never mind the fact that the house is 100 years old and that in all that time there had never been a problem with mail delivery... What’s more, the same message had been left in the mailboxes of several of my friend’s neighbors. He then told me about an incident where the mailman had allegedly seen a raccoon in one of the neighbor’s yards, and had completely flipped-out, running up to the porch, banging on the door and insisting that the woman who answered immediately call animal control, watching vigilantly through the window while the woman fake-dialed and pretended to talk to animal control.

I was sure that my buddy had somehow ended up with my former mail carrier. I asked for a description, and sure enough, it fit to a tee. My friend, however, isn’t as big of a sissy as I. He called the postal inspector to complain about the situation with his mailman. The postal inspector went to his house to inspect, his mailbox location was deemed appropriate, and my buddy, and his neighbors, began receiving their mail again. Whether or not they’re receiving all their mail, only the freaky mailman knows for sure; and whether or not he’ll end up going postal on my friend and his neighbors, only time will tell.

Another friend who lives on my block recently had a close call, however. We were out front shooting the breeze, and he asked me if I remembered “that asshole who used to deliver our mail.” I said I did, and my neighbor told me about the latest “incident.” A friend of his had been driving by, and stopped to talk to my neighbor, effectively blocking the street. A postal truck came rolling up, but rather than wait for my friend’s friend to drive off, began revving his engine and lurching forward as if he were going to ram right into him. There was no doubt in either of our minds who was behind the wheel.

“If that mailman ever shows up on your front porch, don’t open the door,” I warned. “Sounds to me like he’s about to go postal.”

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