The U.S. Postal Service is falling apart. It will, however, let you buy its new board game at Target. The board game costs $34.99 and is another example of the absurdity of how badly managed USPS is.
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Target sells the game online. Its official name is USPS: The Great American Mail Race. Players get to race around the country and deliver as many packages as they can. They can use planes, trains and the USPS Rocket Ship. It appears that people can even deliver mail while on horseback. The players can drop off packages in some tiny towns. Unfortunately, the USPS really has offices in these places.

The board game should be played by two to four people. It is meant to be played by people 10 years old or older. People should not let children near the game. They can choke on its smaller pieces.

USPS is close to a game in real life. It operates 34,000 offices, which is far too many. Some are in towns with as few as 3,000 people, which is a sign of why it cannot be a viable operation.

USPS also has over 600,000 full-time employees, many of whom deliver the mail. One reason there are so many is the inefficiency of delivering mail six days a week.

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People do not need to get mail six times a day. Many Americans get more junk mail than they do real letters or bills. Letters have been largely replaced by email. And email can have file attachments that are often an alternative to package delivery. Mail delivery could be cut to two or three days a week. That would allow a cut in workers and help the environment by reducing emissions from its trucks.

USPS management never mentions closing offices or laying off tens of thousands of workers. It never talks about reducing the number of days it delivers mail. Perhaps its executives are too busy creating games.

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