postal carriers

I love how in old movies and TV shows everyone knows their postal carrier. The characters greet them by name and know things about them and their family. The postal carrier often plays an integral role in the lives of these characters. There are beautiful scenes of young kids waiting every afternoon for the mail to come in hopes of receiving that bottle rocket they sent off for with 20 cereal box tops.

Your postal carrier is the person you trust with delivering your mail safely and accurately. Sometimes that may mean you are allowing them to handle your intimate love letters or even a glass vase you are sending to your mom.

So my question is, do you know your postal carrier?

I feel like these TV shows and movies speak to a time of the past. Only in cities do postal carriers even walk from door to door anymore. Growing up in a small town, I always looked for the vehicle where the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car, I never noticed the person driving it!

I recently had an amazing run in with my postal carrier who saved my package from an awful blunder my mom made in sending me a package. To start, this all happened because my mailbox is too small to receive a package and my postal carrier will not leave packages on my doorstep. I am in a big city and things get stolen, regardless of if the thief realizes there is not significant resale value in my dad's tire treatment sample he was mailing me.

The short story: my mom wrote the wrong address on the box! She wrote the street number as 1801 instead of the actual 1809. She has done this before and my $50 gift card to Target ended up at my neighbor's house and lost to me forever.

The rest of the story: I knew the package was coming and came home one day to find the inevitable orange slip asking me to pick up my package the next day from my local post office, which thankfully is only 2 blocks away, super convenient! I went the next day after work and the package was nowhere in sight! I was advised to return the next day as it may not have been brought down yet. Still not a big deal since it is so close to me. I return the next day to find they still cannot find the package. This is kind of annoying as the contents of the package were time sensitive to their relevance. I am then given a number to call to inquire about the location of the package. The evening supervisor, John, tells me that he will have to call me back after he talks to my postal carrier directly because the package is not anywhere it should be.

Later that evening, I get a return call from John who tells me that my package actually was at my post office but under the wrong address and my postal carrier will redeliver it to me the next day. So, in other words! My postal carrier knew the package was for me despite the address and left me the orange slip but when I gave the orange slip (with my correct address on it) to the worker at the post office, she looked for my correct address on the package. We now know that the correct address is not written on the package I am seeking.

Luckily, the next day, I stay home all morning waiting on my postal carrier to arrive so I can receive my long awaited package. She tells me in all modesty, "When you are a good postal carrier, like I am, you deliver by the name and not the address." So she knew that whoever was sending me a package had my address wrong and she took it upon herself to correct the error.

If only I had known this when I went to the post office the first time!

Regardless, I now know my postal carrier and greatly appreciate the attention she pays to her work. If it weren't for her, I would not have gotten my package at all!