Another postal story...

Last December, I was complaining about the quality of service and lack of response from our U.S. Postal Services. Yesterday, it just got worse. A friend of the family called us and, among other things, asked us if we had received a parcel she had sent us one month ago. We said no, but that we would try to check with our postman even though she had sent the parcel without tracking number and return receipt documentation. We went to the post office, asked the postman who knows us very well if he had a parcel for us and without thinking for a fraction of a second, responded “I might,” went into his backroom and emerged five minutes later with our parcel.

He said that he might have misplaced the yellow tag that is stuffed into mailboxes when a parcel won't fit its small space and must be picked up at the desk or inside a larger locker. My assumption is that the parcel had been sitting there for two weeks and no one was doing anything about it! Back in New York, our friend also contacted her post office, was quickly rebuked and scolded for not having purchased the 75 cents tracking service, which was peanuts they said, in relation to the thirteen dollars she had paid in postage. All this to underscore once more the inefficiency and nefarious spirit of our national mail...