The stack of letters on the dresser grew taller and taller. It didn’t attract attention at first, only when it had reached an unmistakable height. Gray, blue, and colored letters lay neatly stacked one on top of the other, corner to corner. Still, she didn’t give a damn about her significant other’s apparent quirk. After all, he was a businessman and still had his shop under control, so he would know what he was doing. So she didn’t bother with the 67-year-old’s strange habit.
One day the couple was on their way to Italy. A business appointment was pending, everything had been planned well in advance, an Italian would be arriving from Rome. It started in the Mercedes. The journey ended before the Austrian border. A police check, just routine. Actually. But then you were asked to follow the patrol car and ended up in the parking lot of a highway police station. There you could sit for many hours on a wooden sinner’s bench. The officials said: no further journey, there is no insurance for the vehicle.
The solution to the riddle lay in the stack of paper. For whatever reason, the partner himself had simply ignored and piled up important letters. Also those of the car insurance: invoice, reminder, announcement of the end of the insurance cover. Everything rested in the letter grave on the chest of drawers. We took the train back to Munich, the trip to Italy was cancelled.
“With increasing age and the associated physical limitations, many people find it increasingly difficult to read, understand and organize their daily mail and to react to it correctly and in good time.” The district office in Munich knows this and has therefore now launched the “Visiting Senior Citizens Advice Service”. So-called “post godparents” come to the house of older people and help to avoid post graves. Of course, the helpers are absolutely discreet when looking through someone else’s mail, but make sure that important things are done. Significant partners could also turn there before ending up in highway patrol nirvana.