If news stories are to be believed, the US
Postal Service is creating a fashion line. Supposedly it’s going to be called:
“Rain, Heat & Snow”, due to the Post Office Creed carved above the entrance
of the New York City James Farley Post Office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat
nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their
appointed rounds.” (From what I understand, this inscription, translated from ancient Greek, was put on the building by the architects, and not actually
commissioned by the Post Office. But it stuck all the same.) But is this really
the best idea for a Post Office fashion line?
The Post Office already has an even better known idiom for
the recent times: “Going Postal”. So why not call the fashion line: “Go
Postal”? That way it could be marketed as clothing for edgy people living
dangerously. And who knows, maybe if everyone who did a spree shooting (like
“Going Postal” was originally coined to refer to) bought something from them
first, perhaps the Post Office could finally break even again. Because as we
all know, there have been a ridiculous number of spree shootings recently. (But
that’s really more due to the ridiculously over-saturated news media coverage
of these events. So maybe it ought to be called “CNNing”. If it were called
that, maybe the news people would stop denying their role in encouraging these
events and actually be responsible for a change. {But probably not. Because
after all, for every spree shooting, up go their ratings.})
But although this is all just a joke, if they called their
clothing line “Go Postal”, they could use the slogan: “The street clothes with
street cred.” And for a TV ad, they could show Travis Bickle wearing his green
fatigue jacket (with a new superimposed logo) saying: “You talkin’ to me?” I’ll
bet a lot of disaffected youths would buy this brand if they really made it,
even though most of them would never actually hurt anyone. They just want to
seem dangerous, and this brand name would most certainly help with that.
Here’s the Post Office clothing post:
