Great Moments In Advertising, Chapter 11: Proofreading

This was in the mail today.

I don’t know what it’s like at your house, but we don’t get any mail to speak of anymore. Even junk mail like this is rarity.  The postman drives his route, and stops in front of our house, but he generally doesn’t get out of the mail truck. There’s a pause, and then he drives on.

I remember a story I was taught in school when I was a little boy:

An old man delivers milk every day on a wagon pulled by the same horse. Many years go by, and all the other delivery drivers marvel at how the old man and the old horse are able to make their rounds so precisely and reliably. After a while they figure that the horse could even make the rounds without any direction from the driver. The owner of the business tries to make the old driver retire, out of respect for his age, but the driver refuses because he says he loves the horse.

One day, the driver comes to work and finds out his horse has died from old age. They offer the driver another horse, but he refuses, and walks out the door into the street and is immediately struck and killed by a truck. It was only then that they understood that the driver had been blind for many years.

I don’t want to be the one to break it to the Post Office, but just between you and me, the horse is dead and the driver is blind.