Picture postcard not so perfect.

To my mind the greatest play ever written was The Glass Menagerie. In the brilliant opening speech, the leading character Tom says that his father was a telephone man who fell in love with long distance and the last they heard of him, ..."was a picture postcard from Mazatlan on the Pacific coast of Mexico. containing a message of two words: 'Hello—Goodbye!' and no address." Having recently been in Mazatlan on a 16-day Panama Canal cruise, I thought it would be fun to send my partner such a postcard. The first hurdle was getting anyone in Mazatlan to direct me to a post office since nobody seems to speak English in this very poor city. Once I finally found the post office, I was told they did not accept American currency and had to find a bank. Once I did locate a bank, I had to sit and wait my turn as one does at the DMV. When I finally saw a teller, I was required to give my passport even to purchase a few pesos. Back at the post office, I paid in pesos for the necessary stamps, which the clerk applied to my postcards with their version of Elmer's Glue. This whole procedure took more than an hour, but I thought it would be worth it for the novelty of having a postcard like the once mentioned in my favorite play. That was two week's ago and the postcard still has not arrived. I suspect that Tom Wingfield's father had more success with Mazatlan mail delivery than I will have.