How USPS failed me in my time of great need

Last week I showed you some fun Etsy finds. I even purchased some baby bandana bibs for myself Jameson. Except that, approximately 28.5 hours after purchasing them, I realized that I had sent them to the wrong address.

My old address. From well over a year ago.

How does that happen, you might ask. Well, it had something to do with PayPal and me not actually deleting said address from their system.

How often do you purchase with PayPal, you might ask. Pretty often, actually, I just kind of… remember… to switch the address every time. Except the last time.

So what do you do when it’s too late and a package is being shipped to the wrong address? I called USPS and they assured me, repeatedly, that filing out another address change was the only way to solve the issue, and that would work just fine, because it’s immediately in the system.

But anyone who’s ever moved could tell you that is a load of craptastic bull.

So I would do what anyone in my shoes would do and called the expert – my realtor.

Except he was leaving on a family trip to see his sister off to Afghanistan. Can you imagine how that conversation went? Something like this:

We’ll be thinking of your sister, please don’t worry about this, but if you have time, a little piece of time, could you perhaps call the new owner of the house about this completely non-life-threatening insignificant-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things package that is arriving at his house?

Mr. Realtor, awesome that he is, is completely gracious and says of course he’ll call, just let him know once the package arrives if it goes to the old house or if it gets re-routed correctly.

So sadly, my low expectations of the USPS came to pass and package arrived at the wrong house.

I call Mr. Realtor. Except that he’s realized he doesn’t have the new owner’s phone number handy. Mr. Realtor kindly gives me his name, and if I can find his number myself, or just stop by when I have time if he’s home, Mr. Realtor assures me this is a very nice Old Man.

Now is when I have to make a decision. I have thus far revealed my sad state of affairs to Brian (who must be so used to this sort of thing from me that he didn’t even offer to help me) and Mr. Realtor. At this point I need to decide if tracking down Old Man is worth the $30, the rest of my pride, and extra trouble to get 5 baby bandana bibs. And I said to myself, yes, it’s worth it.

Lucky day! Old Man is indeed old enough that he has a home phone and it’s listed. I call Old Man and leave a message. Actually, I leave two messages, because of course, of course, the phone drops mid-call. So Old Man has two messages from me that go a little like this:

“Sorry this is awkward, I hope you don’t mind me calling, but you might have received a package from me yadayadayada..” twice

Meanwhile, My Boss walks in while I am calling so I have to tell her the story and God forbid, after I tell her the story, I say “What if he’s dead!?”

He wasn’t dead.

He called me back about 5 minutes later and left the package out for me.

I didn’t have to meet him.
I picked it up during my lunch hour.
A tiny little envelope package.
And yep, all that, and I had only moved about 15 minutes away.

It was so worth it.

P.S. Brian doesn’t agree. He thinks they look stupid. But I love them, and I worked for them, so they’re stayin’.

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4 Comments

  1. Oh my god! They ARE adorable. Though I have to say, Jameson does look a little peeved in his new bandana. Also, I had to laugh at you having to leave old man a message twice. I live for awkward tales like that.

    Don’t feel bad about the address mix up. Last year I ordered our Christmas cards very last minute and had them printed at a one hour photo in a state 12 hours away. I had sent something to a relative a few weeks before and forgot to change the shipping address. When I called they told me there was nothing I could do so I was just out 40$ and had to have the cards reprinted here. It sucked.

    1. I was trying to convince myself that he didn’t remember I was one of the old owners of the house, but Brian has disabused me of the notion. He says that of course the old man remembered me. Thanks Brian.

      That’s so funny about the one hour photo! I was honestly debating about just ordering another set so I wouldn’t have to deal with it and be out $30. But yes, that totally would’ve sucked.

  2. If it helps (and I’m not saying it will), poor Phil tried to surprise me with a package at work only to realize after a bunch of checking with our mail room that he’d actually addressed it as the institute of ART (not Music). He called the other school’s mail room and got an oh-so-nice man who offered to walk it over to our building (the two being less than 1/4 mile apart). Phil was embarrassed by his mistake but impressed by the seemingly rare (these days) generosity of said man.

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