The United States Postal Service is supposed to be the gold-standard of reliability, so much so that it’s a well-established principle in law that when a letter is proven that it was put in the post, it’s presumed delivered in terms of acceptance of a contract or meeting a deadline.
That’s why there was always such a queue at the Post Office often until midnight on 15 April to ensure that the tax forms that were posted to the IRS had that magic stamp that said it was on time regardless of when it actually showed up for processing.
I remember when we used to make quite the jolly outing of it where we’d be laughing with the other poor souls caught up in the queue to pass the time until it was our turn to fork over the mighty tome of Internal Revenue Code compliance.
However, at my current residence…consistent delivery on the days they’re actually supposed was a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance. That is until I discovered “Informed Delivery” which scans an image of most of the mail destined for my post box (and if I’m honest, the shredding bin soon after!) and also keeps tabs on packages that are coming through the USPS destined for my house.
Ever since Sunnybrook Branch ratted me out to the carriers that I was now getting an image of what was expected, they’ve been far better about not just skipping my house in a fit of laziness and/or stupidity.
Mind you, we had a bit of a scare last week when what was supposedly the parcel Katie had ordered shipped to my place was tagged as delivered at the box only for me to discover that it wasn’t there. Nick and I hadn’t ordered anything either so it must have been a false-positive because my address is actually the default address for my street (another lovely function of my house number actually appearing on the street sign!) which means I’m often delivered mail with defective addresses and/or ones the imbecile mail carriers can’t apparently be bothered to understand that the number may be the same but the street name most certainly was not!
Fortunately, it was just a false positive and I got the warning today that the correct package was due to be delivered at roughly the same time I’d have to leave to get Alex to work on time.
So it came to pass that the carrier’s little van was in my end of the cul-de-sac as we were literally getting into the Traverse…and he skips my box.
I go out to check because I had turned away and nope…nothing there.
Next thing I know, he hangs a U-turn at the top of the cul-de-sac and then comes back and hands over the package.
I’m genuinely shocked.
Perhaps I unintentionally projected a sufficient amount of menace in his direction or maybe he’d realised his ooops but either way, Katie totally lucked out and has her package waiting for her to pick up so all is well that ends well.
Speaking of breathtaking amounts of luck, the other parcel she was expecting via UPS was in the vicinity of the house several hours before the delivery man actually made it to my house to hand it over.
Literally two minutes before I’ve got no choice but to leave for Wake Forest for duty assignment spinning tunes and running scoreboard for the beer league.
I really wish I’d recorded the real-time tracking of his van which was bouncing between the Sheetz at the top of Rogers Lane and just our side of the I-440 motorway…then bounce back to Sheetz where he’d sit for a half hour probably working over a Slurpee.
Wash, rinse, repeat about four times!
Then of course he had to come all the way down the neighbourhoods on the other side of Rogers Lane before finally crossing over to mine where fortunately it only took him ten minutes to finally make it to my house.
Three hours after the estimated time…grrrrrrrrr!
It’s enough to drive someone to drink… 🙁