I'm ready to give (something) up - Are you?

I'm not afraid of giving something up for the greater good.

Life is give and take. Sacrifice and reward. We've all been there, having to choose between going out to eat and paying the electric bill. Hopefully the electric bill won out.

Odds are if you're reading this column, you just can't have everything all the time – or in the words of Jagger, “You can't always get what you want.”

Actually, the sacrifices I'm thinking of today aren't even really things that I want. Maybe you do, which, of course, will make them bigger sacrifices. But for me? No big deal.

The United States Postal Service has thrown around the idea of eliminating Saturday mail delivery. Many people seem to be up in arms about this. For the life of me, I can't figure out why.

In my lifetime, I've had eight different addresses. That's eight different mailboxes in 36 years. I don't know that in all those years and all those mailboxes I've ever gotten real mail on a Saturday.

It seems impossible that no one ever sends a bill or a letter or anything of any importance on whatever day it would need to be sent to reach my address on Saturday, but I don't think it's ever happened.

This past Saturday, for instance, I got two bulk mail things with coupons and whatnot. I think that's exactly what I got last Saturday. In fact, I think that's what I've gotten every Saturday for the past year and a half that I've lived in Tonawanda.

I recall thinking this to myself a few years ago – the last time the postal service discussed eliminating Saturday delivery. I think all I was getting then was junk mail, too.

Frankly, even if I were getting “real mail” on Saturday, I can't think of an occasion where I couldn't have possibly waited two days to get that mail. Can you think of a time when you've gotten emergency Saturday mail that you had to respond to or react to immediately?

As far as I'm concerned, they can do away with Saturday. Maybe another day, too. In fact, if the USPS mail delivery was Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I think that would be just fine.

We only have garbage pickup once a week. Somehow we manage.

My second sacrifice is also small. In fact, it's mere pennies. Literally. Let's get rid of pennies. They cost more to produce than they're worth. They clog up my changeholder in my car and they're kind of a pain to deal with.

I say in cash transactions, we just round everything to the nearest nickel and call it a day.

Sure, we might “lose” a couple cents on some transactions here and there, but what were you going to do with those pennies anyway?

So we give up Saturday mail and pennies. And the richest one percent give up a little extra in taxes. We all feel the pinch and the world keeps spinning.

What do you think?