I had to talk to about five people at the Post Office over the last two weeks, trying to find out when we were going to start getting mail at the new house (we'd been moved in for three weeks) before a Supervisor finally told me that I was going to have to go to our new Post Office and physically pick up our mail that had been forwarded from our old apartment address. Oh! I thought the Post Office delivered mail. Silly me!
Turns out the PO won't deliver our mail until a cluster box is installed on our property. But we didn't know that. Our builder hadn't told us that. In fact, our builder had attached mailboxes to each of the three townhomes, as if we were going to actually get mail there, and so we would periodically, anxiously, increasingly frustratingly, peek into them to see ... nada.
The PO Super that finally called me back said cluster boxes were supposed to be installed this week. This is actually a good thing, because the mailbox the builder attached to the house doesn't lock and so anyone passing by - and there does seem to be an interesting assortment and number of people "passing by" - could nab our mail. One of them already absconded with my tool box, on the day after we moved in! Welcome to the neighborhood! No worries, however. The old tool box was full of old rusted shit that I hadn't gotten rid of in years. Time for a new start! Look on the bright side and all.
(Turns out, a neighbor has told us that the house that was on the property before ours was built was this huge antebellum mansion type home that had been left to disrepair because the owner had died. Slowly, the abandoned home became a haven for drug dealers and a shooting gallery. Eventually, it became a crack house. So, maybe all these people passing by the house are still looking for the crack house. Wonderful!)
At least with a cluster box, our mail is safe from the gypsies, tramps and thieves. And it will only be a short walk to the corner to the cluster box. AND, the box will be facing the street with our address (it's a north-south street), which will help visitors to know that they are in the right place after all. You see, our front windows and driveway faces the east-west street. In fact, all three of the townhomes driveways face the east-west street, looking north. But the addresses are all on the north-south street, looking east. How f*cked up is that? So far, everyone except UPS has had trouble finding us. Heckuva job, Brownie!
According to the PO Super, all new construction uses cluster boxes. Period. Makes sense. I just happened to be driving in the Mustang with the top down on a gorgeous December day a few blocks away from the PO where they were holding our mail when he called me, so I just zipped right in. Maybe they should consider a "drive-thru" lane.
And let's hear it for mobile phones, because the phone company, AT&T, still can't seem to get it together to get us landline telephones. But that's another story. If it ain't one thing ....
Anyway, a week or so after picking up mail for the first time, I went back to the Post Office to pick up mail again, because our cluster box was still not installed, and the postal worker checks on her computer and says, "Your mail has been delivered to your mail box."
"What mail box?" I asked. "We're still waiting for the Post Office to install a cluster box."
"It's being delivered to your cluster box," she replied, with an air of impatience.
I hesitated. "But, where is that? There's still no cluster box in the ground."
She looks again in the computer and says, "It's in the 200 block of ____."
"You're kidding? There? We thought they were going to put it on the street where our address was."
"It's there!" she barked, obviously impatient now.
"Well," I said, "if that's the case, can I get the key to it? The Supervisor said that once the box was installed, they'd call me, which they didn't do, and I could come and pick up the key for it."
"I have the key," she mumbles, "but I need to see your drivers license and the closing documents on your home before I can give it to you."
"The closing documents? You're kidding, right?"
That was not the right thing to say. She rolled her eyes, turned around, headed for the door to the back, and almost yelled, "You need to bring your closing documents!"
I stood there stunned for a minute, looking at the other people in line, some of who were rolling their eyes and smirking. I stood there, wondering if she was going to come back. After a couple of minutes, she hadn't returned, so I left, went home and pulled out my closing documents.
Once I got back to the Post Office, I had the misfortune of getting the same worker again behind the counter, and I told her I'd just been there, got a new cluster box, yadda yadda, and I now had the closing documents, and I needed the key to the box.
"I was going to give you the key," she sassed, "but you left!"
"Hey, I waited a couple of minutes for you to come back! You said I needed to bring you my closing documents, so I went and got them. You didn't say you were going to give me the key anyway," I fumed, now getting pissed.
"I'll get the Supervisor," she hisses, and walks away again. After a minute, the Super comes out and, not even asking for the closing documents, looks at my drivers license and gives me the key.
(sigh)
So, our cluster box is a full block away from our home. It is not on our corner, not even on our block, where people looking for our house might see the box with the address on it and know they are in the right place. It's way the hell over there, in a cluster box with another housing complex entirely. Logical, eh?
One day I was fetching the mail and the mail carrier was coming by. We got to talking about my adventure and he tells me that there are TWO mail carriers that deliver to that one cluster box (which has only eight boxes on it). This is yet another example of the inefficiency of our post office. No wonder the costs keep going up. Incompetence gets expensive.
Livin' in America!
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