Let me begin by saying this very well could be just my personal experience, but it seems like the postal service has become less reliable in the last couple of years. In the last four months, I know for a fact that I did not receive two very important pieces of mail, one a check and one an ATM card replacement, even though they were mailed to me.

Also, on more than two occasions, my mother dropped a card for both of my boys in the mail at the same time, and one came within a couple days, the other, a week or more later.

These situations make me wonder how many other pieces of mail never made it to my box. It’s not like I think I won a sweepstakes and don’t know it, but I hope I’m not missing out on any cute Christmas cards from crafty friends.

My mail carrier, who seems like a competent person, drops the mail off late in afternoon, and I almost always get it directly from him or immediately after he puts it in the box, so I can’t even get all paranoid and think someone is stealing my mail.

This troubles me because I like snail mail a lot and hate to see it become an even-less-then-reliable form of communication. I still exchange letters with a couple of faraway friends. I like to send valentines. I don’t even mind junk mail because I used to work in advertising and still have a sick fondness for analyzing pieces of direct mail.

Sure, I love e-mail and send dozens of messages every day, both for professional and personal reasons, but I still appreciate stamps, stationery and people’s signature scrawl more. I’d hate to see snail mail go away, but because of recent postal pitfalls in my personal life, I wonder if it’s heading in that direction.