Well, it's the second time it's happened this year and I am really ticked off. I'd fire off a strongly worded letter to my imaginary boyfriend, U.S. Postmaster General Jack Potter, but I know it wouldn't do any good.
From time to time I'll stop by my "city" Post Office, the one I frequent when I have stuff to mail and I find myself on the other side of the water from the island where we live. I like to surprise Donna by sending her postcards, for no reason other than everyone likes to get something handwritten in the mail once i a while and it lets her know I am thinking of her.
Last week I sent her an awesome little antique photograph of a very proper and fancy little girl, circa 1920 I guess and expected it to arrive at home the next day. It's only 13 miles by the way. Well, it didn't come. Surely by the following day though, right? Not so much. The sad end to the story is that it has now been a week and the postcard never came.
Somewhere in the middle of all this I stopped by the so-called Post Office and talked to the worker bee on duty. I explained about the undersized black and white photo postcard I had mailed that week that never arrived at its destination and wondered if she could re-check the mail chute in case it got stuck.
"Oh, it was undersized. There's your problem," she shot back.
"Well, it was a little smaller than a modern postcard but certainly something your machines would have been able to pick up. It wasn't invisible!," I countered.
"Did you put your return address on it?," she asked , and not ironically.
And I said, before leaving, "With all due respect, if you can't deliver it to the correct address already on the card, why might you be able to deliver it to the return address?"
Look, I know you take your chances if you don't get tracking on anything you mail and it certainly wouldn't occur to me to do that on a postcard but it is still disappointing. So, Donna, your little girl is lost but please enjoy this image of a monkey riding a bicycle, with my deepest affection.
Love, Bean
That happened to me once where I sent a smaller sized postcard. Their excuse was it was small so it probably slipped out somewhere in the mail truck.
Posted by: Raul | July 03, 2008 at 04:30 AM
Awwwwww, I think that's so sweet that you mail stuff to Donna, just to let her know that you're thinking of her! (I hope that that's not INSTEAD of "date night"!)
Posted by: Stacey | July 03, 2008 at 05:30 AM
Hey Bean...hopefully someone else enjoyed your lost postcard. Wanted to let you know I got my surprise from the Something Store and it was the same stupid zipper thing you got! At least yours was a better color! Happy 4th!!
Posted by: Cindy | July 03, 2008 at 06:16 AM
i'm sure mom will let this one slide.
how can you keep calling the postmaster general your boyfriend, when he continues to let you down like that?
Posted by: your daughter | July 03, 2008 at 06:25 AM
You send Donna post cards? That is so sweet Bean!
Posted by: Alisa | July 03, 2008 at 08:03 AM
Good save - Donna, you're a lucky women...
Posted by: Ken | July 03, 2008 at 08:11 AM
so when you say monkey riding a bike you mean usps mail carrier right?
Posted by: db | July 03, 2008 at 08:13 AM
Who would ever think to put a "return" address on a post card? That doesn't make any sense at all!
Posted by: Kelly | July 03, 2008 at 08:44 AM
Maybe they'll find your postcard under some machine in 75 years and it will gain national acclaim. They'll track your children down and the headline story on Yahoo! will be about the love between Bean & Donna.
Posted by: Chris Kiefer | July 03, 2008 at 08:46 AM
ROFLMFAO!!!!!! I'm cracking up over the return address exchange....
Posted by: K | July 03, 2008 at 09:59 AM
I feel your pain Bean, I too enjoy sending random cards in the mail but always wonder if they reach their final destination because of their size. Since when does size matter? =0)
Posted by: angie | July 03, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Not relevant to this post, but Bean have you seen the NBC / Olympics commercial starring swimmer Michael Phelps and his bulldog (I think he's a bulldog) Herman? Very cute, the two of them chilling on the sofa. It's on youtube.
Posted by: Suz | July 03, 2008 at 12:18 PM
I don't want to rub salt in your wound, but almost the exact opposite happened to me today. I got a package in the mail today... that didn't even have my street address on it! It was some things I bought off ebay and they were a few days later than I thought they'd be.
I looked at the address label... it had my name, my apartment number, the city and the zip code, but NO street name or number. Yet it still got to me! That amazed me.
Posted by: Julius Marx | July 03, 2008 at 01:11 PM
Last week while on vacation with my niece, I assured it was not necessary to put a return address on her postcards . . .
Whoops!
Posted by: Diane | July 03, 2008 at 02:21 PM
Great story Bean.
Donna you are a lucky woman.
We should all be married to someone like Bean.
Posted by: Lynne_T | July 03, 2008 at 04:22 PM
Great story, start to finish.
Posted by: LA | July 03, 2008 at 07:21 PM
I think I have fallen in love with you even more, Bean! Donna is one hell of a girl to get handwritten postcards from ya. Lucky Bean!
Posted by: Sil | July 03, 2008 at 09:37 PM
I wonder if your boyfriend would appreciate us using a return address that is one digit off from the mailing address. That would certainly increase your odds of the mail being delivered to intended vicinity.
Posted by: George Costanza | July 06, 2008 at 07:29 PM
Bean I have sitting on my desk a card that was returned to sender for being too small. Just like you, I wanted to know how could they send it back to me, but not to the intended recipient? I think its about 1/2'' off. The post office should embrace smaller mail, its easier to carry!
Posted by: Jessica | July 07, 2008 at 10:27 AM