Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Please, Mr. Postman

On Sunday I realized my my daughter-out-law's (she'd be my daughter-in-law, but in Ohio we don't allow that) birthday is Thursday. None of the cards in my current inventory were appropriate (because she wants to be neither a pirate nor a princess, for some reason), so I picked one up at the college bookstore on Monday and brought it home for Old Dog to sign. Mistake #1: Because Old Dog hates writing checks to the kids (because they hang onto them for months before cashing them) I put cash in the card. So now it's Tuesday morning and the card still has to travel to another city and get delivered on Thursday. Knowing that on-time delivery was a long shot, I stopped by the main Post Office and dropped it in the mailbox there. Mistake #2: As the card was leaving my fingers, some reptilian portion of my brain registered that while the middle of the envelope bore a neatly printed address and the upper left corner of the envelope had a return address label (because everyone who wants a donation sends us labels and it's just wasteful to throw them away), but the upper right hand corner of the envelope was pure white. As in, no postage stamp. I'd just dropped an unstamped card with fifty bucks in it into the mail. I've seen sitcoms where people tried to retrieve letters from the Post Office mailbox (was that Lucy? Brady Bunch? anyone remember?) and it never worked. And even if it had, I wasn't going to try it right there in their parking lot. So, I went inside and threw myself on the mercy of the postal clerk. Who took my contact info and money for a first class stamp and promised to retrieve it, stamp it and send it on. Seriously, where else can you get that kind of service for 44 cents?

13 comments:

  1. my opinion of postal workers just went up tenfold.

    (probably Thing form the Addams Family?)

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  2. And I hope, I hope, I Hope, that your postman truly does as he promises. For some reason I bet he does... and I don't even know why. Every once in awhile my cynicism simply walks away. You WILL tell us when your daughter-out-law gets the card, right?

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  3. I'm glad that my better self overtook the cynic. So very glad!

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  4. Helpful help? That's awesome.

    I had a friend who once accidently mailed their keys. That was quite an adventure to straighten out.

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  5. I worked at a Goin' Postal (such an awful name) for about 6 months. Whenever they bring up 'let's close down the postal system!' my heart clenches at the thought we'll all have to go to the Goin' Postals of the world. I like my post office. *whine*
    Love daughter-out-law.

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  6. 50 bucks in the mail..you are a trusting soul:) Just write an expiration date on the check..big letters expires in ten days. How wonderful that someone was going to help you out! :)

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  7. We send gift cards for bucks, but I have done the same thing and I hate to admit it, but I have done it at least four times, and every time I have to explain to the person what I did to apologize for the card being late...

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  8. Absolutely positively nowhere! Only in America baby!

    Oh speakin of babies....congratulations on those precious little great nephews of yours. Lucy...I've got allota catchin' up to do!!!

    God bless ya and have an amazin' day!!!

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  9. Oh, what a lousy feeling! But your postman sounds like a gem - yay!

    :-) Anna

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  10. You're lucky. I've heard of postal workers who go crazy with a stapler for much less.

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  11. I wonder if Mr Bean had tried? If he did, it would be a success story :)

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