The outside world invades us without mercy.

Reports that the horrible MRSA bacteria has been found along Washington shorelines is a bummer. The news that swine flu has arrived in our state, along with a somewhat nasty seasonal flu, is accompanied by the discovery of a bat in Seattle that tested positive for West Nile virus. Bad news is all around.

And now the U.S. Postal Service is going down in flames.

The slowdown in revenues for the U.S. Postal Service is easy to understand, but the effect is harder to accept. The agency is as much a part of the American landscape as the flag, our schools and parks. Here on Mercer Island, as in all of small-town America, the post office and the people who work there are part of our daily lives.

The post office is perhaps the busiest place in town next to Starbucks and the grocery stores. Many employees with the post office have been here for years. We know the postal workers here, and they know us. They wave from their blue and white trucks. They are our eyes and ears on the street. They know when something isn’t right with a neighbor. They make sure that our mail still gets to us, even if the street numbers on the envelopes are wrong. They step out of their trucks in the rain to place parcels on the doorstep and say hello. And by doing so, they let us know that at least for now, everything is right with the world.

But the post office is a business and must be run as such. Kudos to the Mercer Island Post Office for rearranging resources to ensure that as many of their employees as possible can keep their jobs here. Routes will be longer and delivery times might change, but livelihoods are saved, and the mail will be delivered.