Dear Romaine,
Happy Birthday!
You haven't yet received your birthday present due to a strange and perplexing series of events that went down at and in the vicinity of our local Post Office. I'm so sorry about this. And kind of ticked. The mystery may still be unravelling,but here's what is known so far:
1. Last Saturday I took your package to the post office. As there was the typical long line at the service desk I went to the self-sevice machine. I always wondered why there never seems to be anybody using the self-sevice machine. Now I have a clue.
2. I gave the machine all the information it asked of me and I allowed it to suck however much money it wanted from my credit card.
3. It spit out a piece of postage (which I affixed to the package without verifying that it was for the right amount. I mean, who bothers to do that,right?) and - most fortunately - a receipt. Which I saved.
4. Yesterday, Tuesday, my package was returned to me for insufficient postage. Pasted to the upper right hand corner was 66 cents worth of postage.
5. I looked at that 66-cent stamp and said, "What the...?!"
6. I showed Tom the 66-cent stamp on the package and he said, "What the...?"
7. Fortunately we knew exactly where the receipt for the package was because we have a system: Each receipt that comes into the house is dropped on the kitchen table until one of us decides to move it to the dining room table. There it sits 'til we need it again or decide to throw it away. So I knew right where this receipt was: on the dining room table. Sure enough, I had paid $3.23 for that 66-cent stamp.
8. As I had to get to work Tom gallantly offered to return to the post office to run the gauntlet that was sure to await him there.
9. After standing in the long, slow line to the service desk, Tom showed the postal worker behind the desk the package with the 66-cent stamp and the receipt for $3.23. "Nothing the post office can do about it," responded the remarkably incurious postal worker, who then told Tom: "you'll have to pay the difference if you want that package to go out. If you want you can take it up with your credit card company." Right. For $2.57.
10. Still, Tom decided to do just that and this story is getting too long so I'll just cut as close to the chase as I can. Tom took the package to the library down the block and made a xerox copy of its front as evidence for the credit card company, then he took the package back to the post office to play their little game, pay up and get it mailed to Romaine, savoring the sweet revenge he'd feel when our credit card company eventually rejected payment for the $2.57.
But this time around he got a different postal worker.
After he re-told his story this postal worker said, cryptically, "Oh yeah. Last Saturday. Your wife put the wrong stamp on there." The worker then reached under the counter and came up with a piece of postage printed for $3.23. "Here," he said, handing Tom the stamp, "this is the one she was supposed to use."
"What?" asked my very confused husband, but the postal worker answered with a look that said, If you want your package to arrive at its destination before the next Ice Age, you'll put the stamp on the package and zip it.
So Tom did as he was told then handed the package over to the postal worker who dispatched the package to the bowels of the U.S. post office and that's all we know at this point, but Romaine, if that package does arrive to you then hopefully we can put this inauspcious occurrence behind us. Maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved.
But Happy Birthday,anyway, Romaine! Have a wonderful day! And may the coming year be full of good things for you!
Love, Patti 8)
Happy Birthday!
You haven't yet received your birthday present due to a strange and perplexing series of events that went down at and in the vicinity of our local Post Office. I'm so sorry about this. And kind of ticked. The mystery may still be unravelling,but here's what is known so far:
1. Last Saturday I took your package to the post office. As there was the typical long line at the service desk I went to the self-sevice machine. I always wondered why there never seems to be anybody using the self-sevice machine. Now I have a clue.
2. I gave the machine all the information it asked of me and I allowed it to suck however much money it wanted from my credit card.
3. It spit out a piece of postage (which I affixed to the package without verifying that it was for the right amount. I mean, who bothers to do that,right?) and - most fortunately - a receipt. Which I saved.
4. Yesterday, Tuesday, my package was returned to me for insufficient postage. Pasted to the upper right hand corner was 66 cents worth of postage.
5. I looked at that 66-cent stamp and said, "What the...?!"
6. I showed Tom the 66-cent stamp on the package and he said, "What the...?"
7. Fortunately we knew exactly where the receipt for the package was because we have a system: Each receipt that comes into the house is dropped on the kitchen table until one of us decides to move it to the dining room table. There it sits 'til we need it again or decide to throw it away. So I knew right where this receipt was: on the dining room table. Sure enough, I had paid $3.23 for that 66-cent stamp.
8. As I had to get to work Tom gallantly offered to return to the post office to run the gauntlet that was sure to await him there.
9. After standing in the long, slow line to the service desk, Tom showed the postal worker behind the desk the package with the 66-cent stamp and the receipt for $3.23. "Nothing the post office can do about it," responded the remarkably incurious postal worker, who then told Tom: "you'll have to pay the difference if you want that package to go out. If you want you can take it up with your credit card company." Right. For $2.57.
10. Still, Tom decided to do just that and this story is getting too long so I'll just cut as close to the chase as I can. Tom took the package to the library down the block and made a xerox copy of its front as evidence for the credit card company, then he took the package back to the post office to play their little game, pay up and get it mailed to Romaine, savoring the sweet revenge he'd feel when our credit card company eventually rejected payment for the $2.57.
But this time around he got a different postal worker.
After he re-told his story this postal worker said, cryptically, "Oh yeah. Last Saturday. Your wife put the wrong stamp on there." The worker then reached under the counter and came up with a piece of postage printed for $3.23. "Here," he said, handing Tom the stamp, "this is the one she was supposed to use."
"What?" asked my very confused husband, but the postal worker answered with a look that said, If you want your package to arrive at its destination before the next Ice Age, you'll put the stamp on the package and zip it.
So Tom did as he was told then handed the package over to the postal worker who dispatched the package to the bowels of the U.S. post office and that's all we know at this point, but Romaine, if that package does arrive to you then hopefully we can put this inauspcious occurrence behind us. Maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved.
But Happy Birthday,anyway, Romaine! Have a wonderful day! And may the coming year be full of good things for you!
Love, Patti 8)
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