Oh frabjous day, delayed but not cancelled…
Things can get weird when you don’t have a physical mailing address. For years I couldn’t use the local mail at all, I just had things sent to a friend’s house in a city several hours away and waited for Care Package Day when she came to visit. Then I got a post office box, through a cutout because I still couldn’t prove I was a local resident, and that simplified a lot of things. But there are vendors who won’t ship to a post office box. Since they still use USPS, that gets weird. There’s a UPS store that worked for a while, whether the shipper was UPS or USPS, but recently and without any notice (and for whatever reason, don’t ask me) USPS got pissy about that. Gave notice to the people working at the local post office that they were to automatically return any packages sent to that address.
One of the advantages of living near a small town, I guess – the counter people threw a quiet mutiny. When it was regular customers they knew, they put the packages off to the side instead. I found out about it a couple of weeks ago, concerning a package I didn’t really care about. That was okay, but unfortunately I had already ordered those five gel socks. Those things are expensive, and I figured they were off to Limbo.
This afternoon I went to town, stopped at the post office where Big Brother had sent me a bag of dog food and a monthly care package. The nice lady at the counter brought them out, then told me to wait a minute. She went off to the side, rooted around, and brought out another package that had my name scrawled on it. “Bless your heart,” I said, “I figured you had sent that back.”
She leaned over the counter and said, real quiet, “We were supposed to.”
Why I like living in small towns and being nice to the locals.
With this bullshit war against terrorism. We are only defeating ourselves.
I like when people set aside the random rules and just do what makes sense.
I am in the same situation as you are. I use the street address of my local post office adding my box number to it. works and usps approved. Semper Fi….
Buy her a coffee and some flowers at random on visits, that is known as a “keeper”. 😉
Wife runs the 1-person post office in town (open 4 hrs a day). And the actions of your post office lady are just as important to our own rural neighbors. Folks are very thankful for the way my wife watches out for them. Gifts of homemade goodies and fresh garden vegetables/fruits are frequently brought home for my enjoyment!!!
Bobbyvee’s suggestion might just be genius! Just changing the formatting of your address so that it doesn’t sound so much like a P.O. box might be enough get you past a shipping department that has rules against shipping to P.O. Boxes. Try street address and box number, but not “PO Box”.
Being on good terms with “the lady behind the counter” is always a real good idea.
The joys of private, corporate, random rule changes. Our little Podunk Post Office also uses “good sense” and bends the rules.
Joel, I hope you remember that lady at Christmas. I would suggest a card with some cash. The payoff is going to be amazing. I always leave a Christmas card with a twenty in it and a hand scrawled “thank you for your help” in our curbside mailbox for our mailman. Our mailman is a heck of a guy who goes above and beyond for the people on his route.