BOCA CHICA, TX – After fellow billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos both took short trips to space over the past few days, Elon Musk announced that he, too, expects to be in orbit before the Postal Service delivers last week’s mail in Takoma Park.
“It’s only Wednesday, so I still believe we can make it happen,” said Musk. “Plus, I hear it’s going to rain this week. So, contrary to the USPS motto, it looks like we bought ourselves more time.”
Mail delivery issues have been a chronic struggle for Takoma Park residents for years, even before Republicans decided that the best way to win the 2020 election was to sabotage the USPS. Each week, it is common to read posts on local listservs worrying about days with no mail service, complaining about wrongly delivered mail, or asking if anybody has seen a missing package that USPS tracking swears was delivered two weeks ago.
“It’s amazing that billionaires can afford to send themselves into space, but we can’t even get mail delivered on a regular basis,” said Laura Gordon. “I’m not asking to be Bezos-level rich. All I want is to impulse buy a bathing suit from an Instagram ad knowing I’ll receive it before Christmas.”
While most residents remain angry over the continuous mail problems, some have found that the essential randomness of mail delivery in Takoma Park adds enjoyable suspense to their days. “I just found out that I got accepted into Harvard!” said Jacob Davis. “It’s true that I’m about to start my junior year at Georgetown already, but it’s still exciting news.”
In an attempt to improve his public image, Musk has offered to address Takoma Park’s mail problems by using his under-taxed personal wealth to recreate a private version of a poorly funded government service. MailX will use battery powered, recoverable rockets to deliver letters on a local hyper loop. Musk promises the service will be available as soon as 2035, provided that he gets sufficient government subsidies to maintain that schedule.
