Mailman Stand-off: Day 3

So, a couple days ago I was sitting at my desk working when I noticed some yelling coming from downstairs. It appeared my neighbors, who inhabit a subterranean studio located roughly beneath my living room, were in a shouting match with the mailman. The issue? Apparently he likes to walk in front of their window while getting to our mailbox, since not doing so would necessitate going down and up an extra flight of steps. But in doing so he had kicked a piece of lawn furniture, and now the shit was hitting the fan. My neighbors argued that he shouldn't be walking past the window to begin with, since it was their "private space." He asserted that it was a "hallway" and he could walk by it whenever the hell he wanted to. Tensions escalated. Soon my neighbor's husband, a quiet seeming guy with a British accent, was outside their door as well, yelling something about how he wasn't allowed to "kick private property." They then demanded that the mailman give them his name, to which he demanded that they give him their name, to which my neighbors rightly pointed out that he knew their name already; he delivered their mail. Meanwhile, I'm sitting upstairs thinking, we already don't get mail on certain days to begin with (the midweek mailman seems to have amended the "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" to include an exemption for Wednesdays) -- now we're never going to get a letter again. 

Oh, if only I were mistaken. The next day when I got home I found my landlord's wife standing perplexed next to her mailbox. When she asked if I had gotten any mail my stomach sank; I knew where this was going. But it turned out to be even worse than I'd anticipated -- the mailman hadn't just cut off service to my neighbors, landlord and, now, me, but he had *written a note* to my landlord saying that he wasn't going to deliver mail AT ALL until she talked to her tenants about letting him walk past their window. "Is he allowed to do this?" she asked. "He is not, right?" 

No, Nazrene. He's not. And yet he didn't deliver mail on Saturday, either. Usually I might not care too much -- what's going to arrive besides a credit card bill? But I'm planning a wedding, people, and we're waiting for RSVPs. If I have to personally call my would-be guests to see if they prefer chicken, fish or vegetarian entrees, my mailman is going to have a lot more than a piece of lawn furniture to worry about.