Very odd. You go to Mac’s Milk at Millwood and Randolph, with the intention of buying milk and posting a letter at one stop. But where is the mailbox? Gone. As is the one in front of The Leaside Pub on Laird – so too the one at the corner of Hanna and Sutherland by the #88 bus stop. And others, too, possibly? Hard to say when there is nothing there anymore.
Here is Robert Fripp’s letter to Canada Post:
“Remember this? It used to be called a mailbox. There were quite a few around in the olden days. That was before they went missing by moonlight. One local witness states that he was taking a breath of fresh air after dark on a recent evening when a truck pulled up, two pixies jumped out and carried off the mailbox on his corner. Leaside has been relieved of its mailboxes, by night. Not a word was whispered about this to the wisest among us, apparently. They, the mailboxes, just disappeared.”
The response to a query from MP Rob Oliphant’s office, of Canada Post was that Canada Post:
- Does volume monitoring on street letter boxes on a regular basis.
- Tries to configure the network of boxes to maximize access, reach and usage for customers.
- Strives to ensure that customers in urban areas have access to a street letter box within a distance of 500 metres.
Would you think that a box in front of Hyundai on Laird Drive gets more letters dropped in than any of the three that were taken away? Or how about the one in front of St. John’s Music on Brentcliffe?
I personally did well in this situation. We now have a Canada Post box inside the entry door to our condo building, with individual lockers for parcel delivery AND a mail slot for outgoing mail. So, if any of our neighbours thought to open our front door, there is this lovely red mail slot. I just assumed that buildings such as 955 Millwood, Leaside Gate, would have acquired one too, but so far they haven’t. People who live there now have to go along Millwood to Rumsey or up the hill to Southvale and Hanna.
The other strange thing that has happened is that now the red mailboxes have different pickup times – 8:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m., 2 :00 pm. Maybe a better use of Canada Post time than the old “everything picked up at 5:00 p.m.” version, but now you have to look carefully if you are actually trying to get something into the system quickly.
And good luck finding any of these mailboxes using the Canada Post website. They do list local postal outlets, but not the location of these boxes. Are mailboxes going the way of the once ubiquitous phone box?
