You're Ugly Too
Lorrie Moore

In this story, Zoe's only real friends, besides her sister who lives in Manhattan, are the mailman and the taxi driver. She looks forward to the mail coming and treasures letters sent to her from somewhere else. "Zoe lived for the mail, for the postman, that handsome blue jay, and when she got a real letter, with a real full-price stamp, from someplace else, she took it to bed with her and read it over and over." This shows how much she wants to escape from her reality. She lives in a small town in the Midwest, alone in a house that she can't commit to furnishing. With the letters she can escape from her life as a single American History professor and by buying and then returning furniture, she doesn't have to commit to staying in her house.

Zoe said she tips the mailman and the taxi driver at Christmas. This show just how much she values their services. The taxi driver provides her with ways to escape Midwestern small-town life. He drives her to the airport when she visits Evan in New York. He helps her get away.