I am afraid of the Mailman

So I work in on the 25th floor of an ivory tower. Everyday I have to take 2 sets of elevators to get to my floor. And probably every second or third day I run into the building Mailman during his run. He will hop on the elevator and hop off, or worse, I will meet him in the lobby and have to stand there with him, fearing his reprisals.

Mr. Mailman has a lot of opinions. And he is very chipper, even early in the morning (not that I arrive very early). He is smiley and chit-chatty with everybody, even people who don't work in this building. All this is bad enough.

There are two things Mr. Mailman does that make me uncomfortable, if not outright afraid of him. During times of flooding (this happens a lot in Houston), he encourages everybody on the elevator to pray and assures us that if we believe in God we will escape the flooding unscathed. Even more obnoxious is the fact that Mr. Mailman is straight edge, with an attitude. Every morning I carry a travel mug of coffee with me to work. And every time he sees me with this mug, he either asks me--with a certain disapproving look in his eye--if it's coffee, he tells me that coffee is close to a sin, it's addictive, it's a crutch, etc., or he tells me how much better off he is now that he kicked the coffee habit, and so should I, etc.

Today, when I saw his cart in the lobby of the 9th floor, I hid my mug behind a pile of papers I was carrying. It was just too early to be told that I am a weak, spineless, addicted heathen.