Playing With / Snail Mail

• Basic Trope: The mail is slow and takes forever to arrive!
• Straight: Alice mails a birthday card to Bob. He receives it a month late.
• Exaggerated: Alice mails a birthday card to Bob. He receives it a year late. (Bonus points if it was for a milestone birthday, such as 16, 18, 21, 30, 35, 40, or 50.)
• Downplayed: Alice mails a birthday card to Bob. He receives it a couple of days late, even though Alice gave it plenty of time to arrive.
• Justified:
  • Bob's birthday is in December, when the post office is backed up due to the holidays (and the related increase in the volume of mail).
  • The post office has been defunded by the Powers That Be.
  • Alice and Bob live in a remote, rural area. Mail delivery takes longer.
  • Bob moved and didn't tell Alice. Because his mail has to be forwarded, it takes longer.
  • Bob makes use of a mail-forwarding service, instead of having mail delivered to his home, or even a P.O. box.
  • Bob has been the victim of "porch pirates" and "mailbox marauders" stealing his mail.
  • The mail got delivered to Charles by mistake.
  • Alice and Bob live in an area where postal service is privatized, or nonexistent.
  • The postal workers are on strike.
  • Bob is overseas; Alice is sending a piece of international mail.
• Inverted: Alice mails a birthday card to Bob. It gets there the very next day, or the very same day if the mail is really speedy.
• Subverted:
  • The card doesn't arrive on time, because Bob is going on vacation, and has temporarily stopped his mail delivery until he returns.
  • Alice forgets to send the card; it just sits there on her coffee table (buried under magazines), until one day she's cleaning and finds it.
  • Bob moved, and Alice has no idea. Since he didn't have his mail forwarded, the person who lives at Bob's old address now simply did a "Return to Sender."
  • Alice sends it via a private courier service rather than a government-provided mail service.
  • Rather than the card going to Bob's home, it goes to his P.O. box.
• Double Subverted:
  • Bob returned from his vacation a month ago, and he's only just now receiving the letters he was sent during his vacation.
  • Alice mails the card in the nick of time, but Bob still doesn't get it until a month after his birthday.
  • Alice gets the correct address, and it should still get there on time, but it fails to arrive in a timely manner.
  • She does that because the mail is notoriously slow.
  • It still hasn't arrived at his P.O. box.
• Parodied: The mail is delivered by an actual snail.
• Zig-Zagged: Some things arrive on time, others don't.
• Averted: Alice doesn't mail anything to Bob.
• Enforced: Mail is a constantly mocked job by everyone.
• Lampshaded: "Lousy post office..."
• Invoked: Alice mails Bob a birthday card, but the postal workers have gone on strike. During their peak season, no less!
• Exploited:
  • Alice forgets Bob's birthday, and mails the card late. She blames the post office.
  • Alice mails her electric bill late. She tells them, "The check is in the mail."
• Defied:
  • The postal service does its level best to deliver mail on time. Most letters, cards, packages, etc. arrive in 3-5 business days, at the latest.
  • Alice sends Bob an ecard for his birthday instead of sending a physical card.
  • Alice and Bob live in the same apartment or condo complex; since there's no reason to mail something to someone that just lives next door/upstairs/a few doors away/just in the next building/across the hall/etc., Alice simply brings the card over to Bob. (If he's not home, she may tape it onto his door, slip it under the door, or tuck it into the wreath on his door.
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: ???