A Utah teen was recently involved in a motor vehicle accident, driving blindfolded, doing the Bird Box Challenge. She joins the rising tide of people who have switched from swallowing Tide pods to engage in this latest, dangerously edgy craze.
If you are one of the ten people left on the planet who does not know what Bird Box is I congratulate you for not being trendy and for possibly extending your lifespan by not engaging in movie-induced risky behavior. In said Netflix blockbuster thriller, survivors of an apocalypse walk around blindfolded, in order to avoid being driven to suicide by looking upon certain alien entities. By now thousands of the film's hard core fans are emulating Bird Box star Sandra Bullock by doing daily tasks, including driving, with their eyes covered. They are even encouraging their kids to do it, which could either be child abuse or good for the gene pool, depending how you look at it.
But now Netflix has been forced to issue a warning to Bird Box viewers not to try this at home, and leave blindfolded driving to trained professionals. This is similar to the sticker on my bottle of Drano under the sink that cautions not to make it part of my cocktail hour. Such advisories are necessary because there is always a subset of humanity that will want to drink Drano or drive blindfolded. Question is, can these people really read warning labels?
Anyhow, to get to the point, because like it or not this is not a movie review, what Netflix does not realize is that Postal Supervisors have been doing the Bird Box Challenge ever since I can remember, walking around blindfolded as they conduct their daily tasks. They might not call it Bird Box Challenge in the Post Office, but I still think there are enough grounds to claim copyright infringement.
I have often tried to explain a postal supervisor's inability to view working conditions as they really are as being caused by wishful thinking (hear no evil see no evil) or a lack of mental acuity, but now the scales have been lifted from my own eyes and I see clearly they've been bird boxing it.
I used to think my manager just needed new glasses or a math book when he told me I have a foot of mail, when clearly there are three or four stacked up, but now I realize his vision has been obstructed by some kind of eye covering device. One day when he asked for a pivot, then walked away in a huff without seeing the fifteen certifieds I held up I thought he was just stressed out, but now I know he had accepted the challenge of doing his job without ever opening his eyes.
Then last week I thought the boss needed a seeing eye dog when he said it took me 23 minutes from my last street MSP to my return to office scan.
"Wow that's pretty good," I said in self congratulatory fashion.
Then it hit me he wasn't seeing what I was seeing. I don't think he was seeing anything at all because he wasn't smiling.
"That's excessive," he said, pointing to a report on his computer.
"But it takes me eleven minutes to drive back from the route," I explained.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get my manager to see the rush hour traffic I had to slog through on my way back to the PO. In his bird box challenge I was supposed to make my LLV fly like those two birds in the box from the movie, soaring above all the idling cars. He was also blind to the outgoing mail and the empty equipment I had to unload and wheel across a wide parking lot once I did get back. He wouldn't have gotten the picture had I written the whole thing down in Braille. 23 minutes was excessive. 23 seconds would have been excessive.
I tried not to get mad before I just let it go and walked away. I had to be gentle. I was dealing with the handicapped.
The predicament I had understanding my boss's ocular infirmity was that there didn't seem to be any physical obstruction impeding his vision. A gag would have done him nicely, but there was nothing bound over his eyes as he stormed around dragging his knuckles and thumping his chest. Oddly enough, as he raged that he didn't see why I couldn't load my parcels in ten minutes even though they were spilling over the brim of the lobster cage, he wasn't tripping over or bumping into anything, a mystery indeed. For a few days I brooded over this paradox, and then realized that his bird box blindfold was of another sort altogether.
In an illuminating epiphany, it struck me that the bird box blindfold issued to postal management is called DOIS. It doesn't make supervisors run in front of the outgoing mail truck or walk off the edge of the loading dock, but it spits out numbers that make them blind to the reality of the mail. This is why every time I tell my boss the truth he shields his eyes with the report in his hand, as if just looking at me is going to drive him to suicide. Suddenly it all makes sense.
If you can't beat em join em I say, so I have hopped aboard by trying Bird Box blogging, quite evident by the gibberish scribbled down here. But I will never, I repeat NEVER attempt the Postal Bird Box driving challenge, and you shouldn't either, as if I had to tell you that. The picture you see above is just me on my half hour Postal nap. Keep it down please.
Postal Tsunami Musical Guest
Please Welcome ZZ Top - Arrested for Driving While Blind
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