Going Postal

Although the title of this particular post might lead you to believe that I have, in fact, finally lost it and gone insane ("postal"), I am terrified to report that it hasn't happened.

Yet.

No, no, this post is solely dedicated to the United States Postal Service. You see, what had happened was, I tried to be proactive a couple of weeks ago. I had a long "to do" list of things and one of the things was change of address forms.  Since my oldest son is already living in a new location I went ahead and set up his mail to forward effective last week. In a totally different "transaction" I set up my own mail to forward in early May.

Then I ordered some items and anxiously began checking the mailbox for them to arrive (read: hair dye...I'm giving it a try...what could possibly go wrong besides...everything?) only to find that the only thing that arrived in the mailbox was a green VACANCY card. Um, excuse me? NO! Where is my hair dye?! I angrily scribbled a (very nice, polite, and informative) note to the mail carrier that MY mail needs to continue to be delivered to this address until the date on my form in May. I also added, "Can you PLEASE find my package from Madison Reed? It's of the utmost importance." and a smiley face.

It's a wonder it hasn't shown up yet. A SMILEY FACE. Anyway, when there was actual mail in my mailbox yesterday, albeit none of it addressed to me, I had hope. The green card was gone and there was mail. Progress! Today there was a card from my Seester, just because (those are the best!), and a key to a parcel box. YES! My hair dye!

No. Not my hair dye. So I do what any normal human being would do...I put on my swimsuit and I go sit in the sun. I mean, if I'm going to sit on hold with USPS for hours on end I may as well get some sun, right? Tan fat is less displeasing than white fat. Right?

So, I'm listening to the advertisement loop where they're talking about how easy and fool-proof it is to set up mail forwarding and change of address and THE IRONY. When someone finally answers I quickly learn it is not someone from my local branch (the number I called) but someone elsewhere...maybe in Dallas, who knows? I explain the situation to the woman named Jenny and she looks up the tracking number and sees my name and verifies the address on the package. When I explain that I never received it she said, "Yes, it was forwarded to your new address." I counted to three and explained (for the 10th time) that I don't take ownership of that residence until early May. And then she said the best sentence of the day: "Yes, I see that on your address form but why would they do that?"

I. DON'T. KNOW. JENNY. That's why I'm calling you! Jenny was awesome, though. She called my current post office and said, "Deliver her mail!" and she called my new post office and said, 'If you find her package it's super important and she'll come pick it up!" and then she called me back to tell me what she did. It was impressive. Not as impressive as my package being delivered on April 17 like it was supposed to but I'll take a small victory.

Also this morning I got another call from someone I had been waiting to hear from. They apologized for taking so long to get back to me (complete stranger but honestly...do I know a stranger? Nope) and after we chatted for a little while she said, "You are just so pleasant to talk to! I wish  everyone I contacted was as cheerful and kind as you are." She couldn't see my hair flip, nor does she know that's my thing, but I did it just the same. I told her I was going to tell my kids, biological and otherwise, what she said and she laughed and laughed. Then she said her kids were 5 and 3, both boys, and I laughed and laughed. What a ride she's in for in the next 10 years. Oof.

In an attempt to be semi-productive today (because I didn't want to do a damn thing), I started organizing my stuff for APUSH. I don't really foresee my kids using a bunch of it but I wanted to clean it up and organize it for future years. ***and then I disappeared for an hour to register for my APSI because I'm past the deadline...oops***

Aubs