Amazing, the things we’ve taken for granted.

One day, all is copasetic. We’re operating within the ritualistic rhythms of our lives. Then, change comes — change we’re powerless to prevent — and our routines are thrown out-of-whack to the point where a subtle uncertainty makes us feel slightly off-balance.

The particular “new normal” that has unsettled the patterns of behavior for Rogue Valley residents in recent weeks has to do with the disruption of one of our most consistent daily touchstones … the U.S. Mail.

A new day comes, and with it unwanted advertisements, bills, notices that we’ve been “pre-selected” for credit cards we didn’t know we needed, perhaps even a letter from a long-lost relative.

Now, though, in conjunction with Southern Oregon’s designation as a “rural” area under the U.S. Postal Service’s “Delivering for America” plan, the process for the sending and receiving of the mail has been adjusted and lengthened.

Before the implementation last week of the first steps in the plan, there were five trucks assigned to collect outgoing mail from the Ashland, Talent and Phoenix post offices and deliver them to the regional distribution center in Medford.

Now, there a single truck — as in one — to cover that route. At least once since that particular change, a full day’s worth of mail sat unmoved in Talent and Phoenix. White City and Gold Hill mail also was excluded from afternoon pickups on one occasion.

What did the Postal Service have to say about this?

“Thanks to extensive planning as outlined in our ‘Delivering for America’ plan,” Postal Service spokesperson Kim Frum wrote in an email to the Times, “we are quickly able to adapt to anomalies such as this to provide reliable service.”

Thanks to the planning in our plan? Adapting to anomalies? You can judge such administrative gobbledygook for yourself. The explanation left us, however, sitting as unmoved as the mail in our local post offices.

In fact, we were steamed enough to write the Postal Service a sternly worded letter — until we considered how long it might take to get to them.

As Jeremy Schilling, president of the local postal workers union, pointed out, the fly in the ointment is the designation of the Medford facility as one which services the “rural area” encompassing Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties.

A rural area, mind you, that just last year processed nearly 250 million letters, 28 million flat-rate envelopes and 11 million packages.

Ultimately, the closing of the Medford distribution center will lead to further delays and more frustration on the part of residents. After all, it’s simple math: A package sent from Medford that now has to go to Portland (and back) before being delivered locally is going to take more time.

Time might be money for the Postal Service, but it’s the rest of us who are paying the price.

As our frustrations grow, however, keep one thing in mind: It’s not your local post office and mail carriers who are responsible for this mess. Sympathize with them, empathize with our shared plight. But let’s not take our frustrations out on them.

After all, they still strive to toil under the credo that “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Notice, however, it says nothing about nonsensical directives from above.