Thursday, April 06, 2006

what it's like to be postal.

On Tuesday, I received two of those "sorry we missed you" notices from the post office. One was dated 3/22. The other was dated Monday. The Monday notice also indicated that it was the LAST NOTICE and the letter would be returned to the sender on 4/6 (today). I was annoyed that I received both notices on Tuesday, since one was three weeks old. Nevertheless, the next morning, at the crack of dawn when I usually leave for work, I braved the driving wind and rain and duct taped (quite firmly) both notices to the door with instructions on where to leave it. Those two notices sat there, firmly taped to the door, for two days.

Today I got home from work early (fluke), and seeing that the notices were still on the door, walked down to the end of my block to the post office. I gave them the notices and they asked for ID. I provided ID. They told me that since my ID did not reflect my new mailing address, they would not give me my mail.

Huh?

I've picked up mail before with this ID, I explained. Usually it's sufficient since it's photo identification, it has my name on it, and it's clearly my face. The postal worker was not swayed. I have no way of picking this up, then, I said to him. He then started saying something about state and federal law. I was not swayed, either. I showed him the duct tape and said, "These have been taped to my door for two days. Why can't I have anyone redeliver it, if I can't pick it up?" Taped to the door? he asked me. He was puzzled. Annoyed, I responded, well how else am I supposed to let the mailman know I want this redelivered? You have to call and tell them, says the postal worker.

Where in the instructions does it say I have to call anyone and tell them I want my mail delivered? Nowhere. I've never once encountered such a rule. He took one of the notices and said he would tell them to redeliver it tomorrow, with the instructions for where to leave it. I thanked him and left, thoroughly annoyed that I still didn't get the letter that my baby sister sent me three weeks ago.

Then I returned home with high hopes of taking the extra time to clean my room, pay my bills, organize, etc etc, and instead immediately fell asleep across my unmade bed. As is my usual practice, I disrobed immediately upon entering my room. This meant that when I was awakened by the doorbell 45 minutes later, I had to dig for clothing to put on, find some flipflops, run to the door.... just in time to see the mailman walk down the street and around the corner. I yelled after him, to no avail.

I just want my letter.

6 comments:

Sancho said...

Bwaahaha! Your frustration is amusing and COMPLETELY understandable.

As is my usual practice, I disrobed immediately upon entering my room.

Can you go into a little more description here? Oh yeah, and type slowsly.

Anonymous said...

God help you if you have to go to a UPS or FedEx office - everything is fine once you get there, it's getting there that's the problem.

-J

WomanoftheLaw said...

I wish I could tantalize you with the disrobing details, but it usually just involves me tearing my suit off my body as quickly as possible, throwing on sweatpants and a t-shirt, and putting my hair in a ponytail. The transformation is very underwhelming. Sometimes though, I don't quite make it into the sweatpants before I get lazy and crawl into bed. At 6 pm.

Anonymous said...

Why wasn't the letter just left inside your mailbox? Am I missing something? Regardless, that's what you get when the government becomes involved in anything. The government is worthless.

Sancho said...

I'll take it!

6pm huh?

Sancho said...

Umm, when I said, I'll take it! I meant that the additional comment was filled with sufficient detail to satisfy my curiosity.