"Keep Your Hands Off My Mom's Package!"

Can you believe The Pony refused to post a note like that in the mail room? What kind of kid won't do that for his loving mother, who has fed him and housed him and pampered his broken ankle since he graduated from college at the height of the pandemic???

Let's back up a minute. So I can explain how my package became up for grabs, to be manhandled and pawed by grubby hands all willy-nilly after hours and at prime peak sorting hours.

I ordered a yellow ink cartridge for a dinosaur of a printer that Genius gifted us with when he moved out of his college house to take a job with Garmin and live in a fancy apartment in Kansas City. That printer worked fine as my second printer, sitting on a workshop bench on the other side of the wall from my dark basement lair. 

 

Then my HP printer at my right elbow quit printing. It still copes and scans, but won't accept a print job. So all my printing needs were done by the behemoth in Hick's workshop. Even though 99.9 percent of my printing is black and white, the yellow cartridge ran out, and now this gargantuan electronical beast won't print anything, even in grayscale. 

Anyhoo... those dang cartridges cost $300! But I found a re-somethinged one for $49. Two day shipping from Amazon! Of course The Pony asked if it was coming by FedEx or UPS or the USPS. When I got the email that it had shipped, I saw that it was by USPS. They deliver on Sundays, you know. They call it "Amazon Day."

It was supposed to be here by 9:00 p.m. Sunday, but The Pony said almost everybody was done by 3:00 on Sundays, now that the holidays were over. He said their scanner automatically sends a notice when the package is delivered, and that I'd get an email telling me.

I got a text. At 11:21 a.m. From The Pony:

"Your package was too big for the parcel locker. They're scanning it and bringing it back to the post office and I'll pick it up there when I'm off."

The rural carrier, not a close acquaintance of The Pony, had noticed the last name on the label, and offered to bring it back to the office and put it where The Pony could find it and bring it home.

 

Another Pony text came in at 1:44 p.m.

"Wasn't there yet. I'm going to Steak N Shake. I'll check back where they said it would be on the way home."

And another Pony text at 3:15 p.m.

"Doesn't look like she's back with it yet. Using the bathroom, gas, and then home. I'll get it from them tomorrow."

Which is what led to me asking The Pony to text or call someone at the post office, to put up a sign declaring that my package was off limits! Supposedly it was getting set unceremoniously on the desk of a specific city route, for The Pony to grab. With it just sitting there, who knows WHAT fate might befall my package???

Of course The Pony didn't want to make waves. He wasn't even due in until 3:30 on Monday. But he got up and ready anyway, and was called in to start at 10:30. Of course when he arrived, my package was missing. Which I learned by text:

"Not at the manager's desk OR the spot they said."

Now I am packageless! The best I can hope for is that the person who runs that city route put it on the manager's desk, who then gave it to the person running our rural route on Monday. So it will be driven around all day, and then brought back to the post office because it won't fit in the parcel locker down by EmBee. But if that's the case, at least I should get a little orange card to come pick up my package at the main post office.

It sure doens't pay to have an insider at the post office. Or to have a package too big to fit in a parcel locker...