Here is another question that has bewildered me (like that “Enter Only” sign that I wrote about before).

Every morning, before daybreak, I come out and sit in our balcony with my cup of tea. It is very calming to watch the early morning walkers and runners occasionally go by in the relative quietness of the dawn. And then, ever so often, a mail truck pulls up in the post office in front of our house and goes thru the exact same steps every day. It is fun to watch how the eighteen wheeler that shows up around 6:05 will go all around the parking lot after loading/unloading instead of exiting directly. And that is to give itself a lot of maneuvering space at the turn for exit.

On a Sunday like this, usually there is no activity in the post office. You can see many of the mail vans sitting idly in the lot. And that brings me to my question.

Check out the zoomed in picture of the vans. Do you notice how every single mail van has on the roof – what looks like a rusted out brown patch – on the right front (as you face the van)? The patterns are very similar too (the sizes vary a little). Now this being a mail van, this is the non-driver’s side.

For the life of me, I cannot surmise why does each and every mail van have that patch on the roof? Does anybody know?