On What Really Happened to Franz Kafka and Why You Must Submit to the Post Office

In life it’s important to pick your battles. Some are unwinnable. Take the post office for example. Let’s talk for a few minutes about why you should never engage with the post office, unless you don’t mind meeting an untimely death, which is what happened to one of my personal literary heroes, Franz Kafka.

Before we do a deep dive into what happened to poor Franz, the only piece of advice I can ever give to anyone about anything with any certainty, is this: Never try to locate a missing package. It’s futile, and when packages go missing, it’s always YOUR fault.

For example, say a postal worker delivers your package to the wrong address and the person who lives at the wrong address likes the flannel shirt you ordered and decides to keep it. Your fault. Obviously. Why? Because a) you should have known that the shirt was so nice other people would want it b) you could have predicted that something like this could happen given Covid and bad weather and all the pressure on the mail carriers who dislike you anyway for ordering so much stupid shit, and c) you should have lived at that address and then you would have received your flannel shirt.

Kafka knew all about bureaucracies and spent his short, brilliant life writing about the absurdity of battling them. But allow me to assure you that if he had to deal with the USPS, he would have died from frustration at an even younger age! And, in fact, this is what happened, although no one likes to talk about it.

Don’t get me wrong-- I am sure the post offices in Prague were no walk in the park to deal with either-- but nothing compares to the helpless and hopeless feelings of despair that the USPS inspires, and Kafka couldn’t even survive Prague’s labyrinthian hell.

I know some people think poor Frankie died from tuberculosis, but I have it on good authority (Reddit) that it was the local post office that did him in.

This is the true story as reported by several chatroom experts:

In November of 1923 Kafka ordered a pair of kidskin gloves that arrived in April of 1924. In late November, they were delivered to Fred Kafee’s house on 32 Golden Lane, not Kafka’s house on 22 Golden Lane, and then were returned to the glove store. This process took several months because Fred, understandably not wanting to wait in those long lines at the post office during the busy holiday season, kind of sat on the gloves and procrastinated before mailing them back to the store.

Why didn’t Fred simply walk the package next door to his neighbors’ house you ask? It’s a fair question. No one knows for sure, but I have it on good gossip that the Kafka’s schnauzer, Minnie, kept pooping on Fred’s stoop, and when Fred complained about the poop on the stoop and politely asked the Kafka family to clean it up or stop Minnie from defecating there, Kafka’s loud and overbearing father, Hermann, insisted it wasn’t Minnie (even though Fred had lain in wait several days in a row and caught her in the act at least three times) and refused to intervene in any capacity. Because of this gaslighting, Fred exacted his revenge when the gloves arrived. Really, anyone else would have just tossed the package-- but he was nice enough to eventually bring it to the post office. So kudos to Fred.

The glove manufacturer, a small bespoke hipster start up designer, was very concerned with customer satisfaction and needed all the positive word of mouth it could get, so it re-sent them right away, but due to a once in a lifetime convergence of a 500 year flood, monsoon, hurricane, tornado, tsunami, and bomb cyclone storm that hovered over Czechoslovakia for 3 months, deliveries were understandably delayed. Actually the gloves never made it to Franz and were resent back to the glove store where Franz had to pay a re-stocking fee and re-order them.

When Franz complained to the post office about all of this, they told him he should thank them for getting the gloves to him early, well in advance of the following year’s cold snap-- which the Farmer’s Almanac was predicting was gonna be a doozy. Now he had the whole Summer and Fall to break them in and make sure they worked properly and could inspect them for the full thirty day return period. But he better not try to return them within that period because, you know, the post office was busy, and had other priorities-- like not delivering and misdelivering a boatload of first time packages to everyone else.

Sadly, due to a glitch in the matrix, and a design defect (the glove pattern had been designed by an artist who had been drinking too much schnapps during the pandemic), the current small batch of hand-stitched precious and lovingly crafted gloves all had an extra thumb. So, when Franz finally got his gloves, 6 months later, he had to return them. He did make a genuine effort to wear them as is, but the extra thumb digit kept slapping him in the face when he adjusted his cap, and it just wasn’t working for him.

But, tragically for Franz, instead of returning them, the post office lost them (or, as Franz suspected, some disgruntled two thumbed worker just kept them), and even the bespoke customer service-oriented small batch hipsters were totally over it, and refused to refund the gloves.

When Franz wrote to the postmaster general to complain, his letter was sent back to him and stamped Return to Sender, Wrong Addressee, No Forwarding Address. When he called to speak to the postmaster, he was told by the postmaster’s secretary that the postmaster did not take phone calls and he could only schedule a meeting with him by snail mail or email, which perplexed both of them as Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet. When Franz protested that his letter had been returned to him, the secretary just shrugged (Franz couldn’t see it, but could feel the shrug in the secretary’s voice-- and it totally pissed him off) and then responded that mail was always an unreliable way to get anyone’s attention and while he would be happy to leave a message with the postmaster, Franz should be aware that the postmaster had never once returned anyone’s call, and he may or may not even exist, as the secretary himself had never seen nor spoken to him.

Around this time Kafka died from “TB.”

You tell me. What really happened to that poor man?

Anyway, I realize that during these difficult times, it would be nice to believe that the post office was reliable and on our side. But we live in uncertain times. Your pet, while it cannot deliver mail and may even eat your mail, is probably the only thing you can count on. Your family and friends, while not as reliable as animals, are also ok, but don’t ever ask them to put on a pair of shorts and knee socks and carry a satchel door to door, or you will be disappointed.

Anyway, Dear Friends, stop checking that mailbox! It’ll get there when it gets there……

Unless I already have received your package in error and decided to keep it! I always did have a hankering for a pair of size XXL steel reinforced bespoke kidskin gloves. And should you see me wearing what you are certain are your gloves, don’t complain-- I know you didn’t order that children’s x-small sequined lavender tutu you're wearing either.

Namaste!