The basic princible involved in "the mail-man joke" stemmed from the basic fact that mailmen go fast between mailboxes. It's all self-explanitory after that. The mailman developed into an Icon of anyting really, really fast. Also at one point in the buss ride home, Tom noticed a bunch of really large bushes with those sharp prickly leaves. Not something abnormal about it, except for an extraordinary amount of the bushes and the fact that there was a spot in the very middle with no bushes what so ever. SO, the comment was made that there was probably a mailbox in the middle of all the bushes. Hence the mailman gag expanded to include outstanding stanema for being able to deliver mail in really difficult places to deliver mail to. And I'm tired now so I don't know how mush sence this makes....