A Lock to Pick With The Pony

On Monday, I had a package delivered by the USPS. It was not large. Just a cube shape about the size of half a shoebox. Of course it wouldn't fit into EmBee, our mailbox, because she is a cylinder of steel pipe, about six inches in diameter. A key on a keyring fits just fine in her not-so-gaping maw, though. Which is how our packages get delivered. The mailman lady leaves a key in the mailbox, to one of the four parcel lockers that sit on a stand beside Mailbox Row.

Two of the four parcel lockers had keys in them, which meant that two people had already picked up their packages, so mine was either in the upper left locker, or the lower right locker. I looked at the clear plastic stick attached to the keyring. Barcode. Some writing too small to read. No number. Huh. I tried the key in the top left locker. Didn't fit. I tried the key in the bottom right locker. Didn't fit. 

This is a problem I've had before. I CANNOT get those keys to work in the parcel lockers. One time I had to put the key back in EmBee, and text Hick to try it on his way home. This time, 

I turned that key seven ways to Sunday, in both of those parcel lockers, and finally got it to work in the bottom right lock, by inserting it upside down with excessive jiggling. 

Let the record show that I read a forum on a certain online platform that is an unofficial place where workers of the USPS go to vent. There is no love lost on customers who have less-than-perfect interactions with the parcel lockers.

As we left our enclave on the way to the casino Tuesday, I picked this bone with The Pony.

"MAYBE, if you guys would attach a message along the top of the parcel lockers to indicate that keys must be put in the lock UPSIDE DOWN, people would be able to get their packages out, and your workers would have one less thing to complain about! It took me five minutes to get that locker open yesterday."

"Oh, Mother. People ARE idiots! That wouldn't help."

"It would have helped ME. Almost as much as if you actually had the number of the locker indicated on the key!"

"We used to. They start out that way, with the locker number on that plastic stick. But people peel them off. Or they fall off."

"Well, there's still the fact that the keys have to be put in upside down. AND they don't slide right in. I thought I'd never get that key to fit. But at least I knew not to try the OTHER lock, that the carriers use."

"Yeah. They break them off in those other locks. Sometimes people never find their package. Then they complain that it wasn't delivered, after they've dropped the key in a mailbox because they think it was lost."

"No. They probably think it didn't even go to their parcel lockers, because the keys are too hard to insert UPSIDE DOWN. You have to be a genius to figure it out!"

Words cannot describe the pitying look The Pony cast my way from the back seat.