The front door had a slot with a brass plate covering it. But it was a hole into the house, and it had to go. I didn't like the idea of someone's hand in my house. It violated the whole point of the door.

Valerie Block is the author of the novels Don't Make A Scene (Ballantine, 2007),...read more

So when my husband and I organized the burglar alarm, we also arranged to have the hole in the door filled in, and put a mailbox outside, next to the door. I thought it was a good decision.

Our first week in the house, the computer genius who came to set up our system (including passwords for the new wireless network) reached into the new, outside mailbox, and presented me with our mail as I opened the door. I was completely flummoxed, and apparently didn't hide it well.

"You just can't believe that anyone would be so nice to bring in your mail!" he said delightedly. "It's not like the City here."

I couldn't bear to tell this cheerful man that no, it wasn't that I was shocked/pleased that he would take the trouble to bring in my mail. I was actually appalled/irritated that he would reach into my mailbox and touch my mail. Did he browse through it while he waited for me to come to the door? It's a Federal crime to handle someone else's mail. And yet, people here do it quite casually. I would no sooner reach into a neighbor's mailbox than I would reach out to finger his or her hair. It's personal!

It's also out of control. So if you really want to do me a favor, why not deal with it for me? Please: pay the bills, shred all evidence of name, address and personal details. Handle the direct mail appeals with creatures dying of terrible diseases on the envelopes. Take your time with the coupons and catalogues. (These catalogues must be mating: they send out new offspring every month -- Pottery Barn Bed, Pottery Barn Bath, Pottery Barn Teen, Pottery Barn Kid, Pottery Barn Baby, Pottery Barn Mud Room, Pottery Barn Sock Drawer. When did catalogues become monthly subscriptions?) If you really want to help, call them all individually to remove me from their databases, and we can save thousands of trees a year.

People in the suburbs are odd about the mail. They put their mailboxes at the end of their driveways, where anyone can peek in to see what their home revaluation means for their property taxes, whether they are members of the NRA or the Brady Campaign, subscribers to the Nation or the National Review. The street-side location means their boxes are convenient targets for bored local teens who cool their hot racing blood by whacking them with baseball bats whilst driving by fueled on alcohol and hormones - another bizarre suburban mail (sp?) ritual.

In the City, one has a key to a box in the mailroom in the lobby. Of course, in the City, there is also a doorman who comments on packages and the amounts of dry cleaning one receives. "Here's an envelope that came by messenger from your lawyer," the doorman once announced in a stage whisper as I arrived home. "The package says urgent," he added, curiosity lingering in the air as he watched me wait for the elevator.

In spite of what it has turned into (Pottery Barn Laundry Hamper!) the mail is important. The privacy of the mail is important. My husband grew up in Cuba, where people pay their bills and deliver personal letters in person because the mail is always searched and/or lost. They also drop by to talk to friends about matters of opinion because they don't have a phone, or because they believe that someone is listening on the phone. "You think you're paranoid," my husband frequently chides me. "You have no idea what paranoid means."

One day last week, I happened to coincide with our mail carrier. He handed me my mail, and then pointed a scan gun at my mailbox.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, I have to keep reminding myself to do this now. This is how they keep track of me."

There was a barcode on the inside lid of my mailbox. I hadn't noticed it. Neither the Mail Carrier nor the Federal Government had asked my permission to install a barcode inside my mailbox. So Big Brother is keeping track of the efficiency of the Postal Carrier, completely ignoring the Post Office, which continues to be the mire of inefficient, rude, sclerotic conduct in need of total overhaul that it has always been -- the same in the suburbs as in the City.

Silly me, assuming that sealing a hole in the door could keep my space private. How long, I wonder, before they barcode our foreheads, so that everyone's comings and goings can be monitored more efficiently?

"Yeah, right," says my jaded Cuban husband, exceedingly unimpressed by my American paranoia....read more blogs