Post Office

Hank hits a lucky streak at the racetrack, consistently making a modest daily profit and feeling confident in his betting strategy. Betty takes a job as a typist. After three years of hard toil, Hank enjoys a carefree routine: leisurely mornings with coffee and eggs, playing with the dog, flirting with the young wife of a mechanic in the back of the apartment building, and chatting with a stripteaser living in a front apartment. By one o’clock in the afternoon, he’s at the track, returning home later with winnings, and waiting for Betty to come home from her job.

However, Betty soon grows frustrated with Hank’s idleness and the way his attention to women in the neighborhood appears to others. One night, she confronts him angrily, accusing him of making the neighbors think she supports him. The argument escalates. She ends the relationship, refuses intimacy, and insists that one of them move out. Hank tells her to keep the house and the dog. He rents the first available place and moves in that night. He reflects that he has just lost three women and a dog.