The postman rang our doorbell last week and asked me to deliver a letter.

It was addressed to the people living in the apartment on the other side of the staircase. The name tag on their mailbox happened to be missing, and they weren't at home.

"Just drop the letter in their mailbox," I suggested. "It's the one closest to their door."

"But there's no name on the mailbox," the postman objected.

We live on the ground floor of a three-story building with six apartments in all. Six mailboxes hang in the stairwell on the wall opposite the entrance. With six names attached to six doorbells outside, and five names attached to six mailboxes inside, it didn't take a genius to deduce whose mailbox the nameless one was. Besides, the postman had delivered letters to their mailbox before. And if the name tag was gone because the neighbors had secretly moved, how was I supposed to hand them the letter?

This wasn't a matter of logical reasoning, though. This obviously was a matter of rules. And the rule that our postman dutifully upheld must have been something like "Achtung, Mail Carriers! It Is Verboten To Drop Mail Into Unmarked Mailboxes!" Discussion was pointless.

"All right, I'll take the letter," I said. After he left, I dropped it in the mailbox.

Germans have loosened up somewhat in recent decades but remain notoriously rule-bound, conservative, and poor at improvisation. Another current case in point: A street parallel to ours is being widened. The public buses that normally use it have been temporarily rerouted onto our street, which also enjoys bus service. Although all of the buses clearly have the same destination, namely the district center and train station, some elderly German women who live on our street let the irregular buses pass and wait for the regular ones.

Meanwhile, at the intersection near the spot where the road work is going on, people still wait for the traffic light to turn green before crossing the street. This, despite the fact that the area is closed to traffic.

Pedestrians zealously obeying traffic lights (not all do), even in the dead of night with no cars in sight, is probably the most cited example of Germans' often blind adherence to rules. I myself am more obedient to traffic lights in Germany than those elsewhere -- when a child is around, always, so as not to set a dangerous example, and sometimes to avoid Germans snarling at me. A few months ago, my wife and I were on our way home from a visit to friends. It was late. We had to cross a one-lane street. Not a car far and wide. The traffic light was red. On the other side of the street, a punkish-looking young woman with a German shepherd stood waiting. We crossed, naturally.

"What do you think YOU'RE doing?" the woman erupted. "A fine example to children THAT is!"

I pointed out that the hip-high fella at her side was a dog.

"But it COULD have been a child!" she snarled.

Discussion was pointless.