Friday, August 12, 2011

The Case of the Missing Mail

The mystery begins with my attempt to get ahead of the game. With my luck I should have known this was a bad idea, but alas I thought I'd buck tradition and give it a go. Poor life decision, Lauren, poor life decision. It dawned on me about a week ago that when we move, we're going to need our mail to move with us. Duh (I never admitted to being the brightest crayon in the box). So I hopped on the USPS website and filled out a quick little form with our old address, our new address, and the date to activate it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? Wrong. This is where the fun begins.

Saturday: Return from glorious vacation in Ocean Isle Beach and stopped by our mailbox to see what we missed while we were gone. No mail. Hmm. Not checking it for four days and we don't even get a sale flyer? Bizarre, very bizarre.

Sunday: Make a prediction that mail is at new address. Run by new address and check mailbox. Nada. Not a big deal, it is a Sunday after all. Maybe it's coming tomorrow. Come home find number to call (nearly impossible thanks to the fact that the USPS is run by the government).

Monday: Call local post office and national number on website. National number gives me prompts through numbers. No help whatsoever. Next step, call local post office. Get busy signal. Is this 1995? Who has a busy signal anymore? Argh. Check new mailbox and current mailbox after work and find both to be completely empty. Swell.

Tuesday: Find new number to call and finally reach human-victory! Am told that our current mail carrier must not have looked to see what day our mail switched over and must have gone ahead and did it. Tells me that she'll talk to the carrier and our mail should be in our current box this afternoon. Hurry home after work to find that mean silver box to still be empty.

Wednesday: Sit impatiently on my hands all day trying not to call the mail lady again. Check both boxes and find that they are still empty.

Thursday: Weigh the pros and cons of calling again, and decide it's worth the three magazines and other goodies I'm waiting for. Call mail lady again and get new mail lady. Find out our mail carrier has already left, but offers to see if we have any mail at the post office. Why this wasn't offered the other day is beyond me. No mail at post office, which means it should be on it's way to the current address. Hooray! She takes my phone number and promises to have our mail carrier call when she gets back in. Oh, and she also decides to mention that it'll take an additional 7-10 days for us to receive mail at our new address. Head in palm. Optimistically raise over to check current mailbox and find. . . nothing. ARGH! Mail carrier calls this afternoon to tell me she doesn't know where our mail is and she hopes it comes back to her to be delivered next week. Uh, yea, I hope so too lady considering we move next week and then we get to do this mail dance all over again.

So, here we are. Our mail seems to be in mail limbo with no signs of returning. Am I frustrated? Yep. Do I realize there is not much I can do at this point? Yep. Am I ready to scream? You better believe it. If you need me you can find me stalking the mail trucks around town.

No comments:

Post a Comment