They Know How To HOLD the Mail, They Just Don't Know How To KEEP the Mail

Remember how Val and Hick went to Oklahoma a couple weeks ago, to visit The Pony? I know you might have forgotten, since I barely mentioned anything about the trip...

Anyhoo, since I knew we would be gone for three days, I once again filled out a USPS form that I printed off the innernets, to have our mail held. You can't be too careful around here, what with ne'er-do-wells ransacking or pounding the bejeebers out of rural mailboxes. I wouldn't want any bills to turn up missing, because everybody knows that if Val doesn't GET a bill, she doesn't PAY that bill.

A couple trips ago, when we were having HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) pick up our mail, our electric bill turned up missing. I'm not blaming HOS. He has a life, and I'm sure he didn't rush down to EmBee to gather our mail at noon as soon as it arrived. That bill might not have been delivered at all, it might have been put in somebody else's box and they threw it away, or someone might have been snooping through the boxes looking for account numbers. You never know. I figured the easiest way to prevent such a catastrophe was to let the post office hold onto our mail.

Last time we were gone, this service worked like a charm. I took my form to the main post office, my mail stopped, and when I returned to pick it up, the clerk used a radio to call upstairs and have my mail sent down. It was all wrapped up like a taco, letters inside a multilayered magazine shell. Nom-nom, bills to pay.

I followed the exact same procedure. Had that form there a few days ahead of time, as required. The post office was holding the mail on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. There's a minimum of three days for this service. I had the dates clearly marked. I checked the box that said I would pick it up on return, and that I understood no mail would be delivered until I came to pick up the held mail. I planned to go get it on Friday, like the last time.

We arrived home after 9:00 p.m. on Thursday night. I told Hick to stop by the mailbox and check, just in case a stray piece had slipped through.

Looks like there was more than one stray piece! That entire bundle was crammed down EmBee's throat, and was filling her gullet. Among the envelopes inside that magazine taco was a REFUND CHECK FROM OUR INSURANCE COMPANY. As you might imagine, I was a little bit upset livid.

"Go up there tomorrow and complain," said Hick.

"Oh, you can bet THAT'S on my schedule! They might have other mail that they actually held. It said on the form they wouldn't deliver again until I came in. I can't believe how people get away with NOT DOING THEIR JOB RIGHT these days!"

Off I went, having taken out the important mail, and left the rest intact in that ill-fated post office taco, to rub the collective post office nose in it, and to take a later picture for evidence. No time for that yet! I had ample-rumpuses to chew!

I waited patiently in line for a couple old ladies to mail packages. The clerk was the regular dude I usually deal with, though he was NOT the one who took my HOLD MAIL form the week before.

"How can I help you today?"

"Well...I'm here to complain, but you're not the one I have an issue with. So I don't know if I should talk to you, or someone else."

"That depends. How mad ARE you?"

"I'm pretty mad, but not irate. I can be civil. But I'm not happy. My mail was supposed to be held, and I got home last night and found all THIS shoved in our mailbox."

Regular Dude took my taco and rifled through it.

"Let me get someone for you."

Regular Dude called upstairs on his radio, for "Gail" to come downstairs as soon as she had time, because someone was waiting to talk to her. And to check the box for Thevictorian, with our address. I'm calling her Gail, because she looked like character actress Gail Strickland. Only not attractive, and in a desiccated kind of way. Like she'd been left out in the desert under a cactus for about 20 years.

I waited at least 15 minutes. That's how they get you, you know, in a government office. They try to out-wait you, thinking you'll give up and go away. They don't care if you go away mad, just so long as you go away. They have nothing to lose by making you madder. It's a government job. Not like they're going to get fired. Regular Dude stepped aside to work on some other stuff, and kept apologizing to me because it was taking so long. Pretty good strategy for a worker there on the front lines, with only a waist-high counter between him and mayhem.

FINALLY, Gail arrived. Did she greet me pleasantly, and ask how she could help me? Oh, NOT-HEAVEN NO!

"You Thevictorian?"

"I am."

"There's nothing in your box." Gail was being quite dismissive. Like she was a common clerk, there to bring down my mail. When I was sure she was management, what with her attitude and the way Regular Dude deferred to her.

"Well, there should have been, because I filled out a form to hold my mail until I picked it up. But we got home last night, and found ALL THIS in our mailbox. Including an insurance check. Which is one of the reasons I wanted the mail HELD until I got back from my trip."

"There's nothing else here."

"So why wasn't my mail held?"

"You probably had a substitute carrier who didn't know your mail was held, and picked up the mail to deliver it."

"Well, we've been having trouble on this route for a while now. I don't know the carrier, I don't even know if it's always been the same one. I've let it go all the other times. We've had mail stolen, packages laid on top of the mailbox, packages supposedly delivered that we never got, received other people's mail, and just this week, our neighbor put on Facebook that she'd gotten another neighbor's mail again. So I'm not the only one it happens to."

"You might continue to have those problems. I'm working on it."

Gail was being a real b*tch-on-wheels, her face never once cracking a smile, or varying from her grimace. I guess it's hard when your skin looks like beef jerky. I wanted to snap off one of her withery arms and beat her about the head and shoulders with it. She acted like the whole situation was MY fault! When I'M the one who followed the instructions on THEIR form.

"All right. I guess. So I don't have any mail waiting here, and it will be delivered as normal?"

"Nothing else up there."

I took my mail taco and hit the road, madder than before I went in. It's not like I can deal with the dead mouse smelling post office. All holds have to go through the main post office.

I'd like to tell Gail where she can hold my mail NEXT time...