Problem Solved

I was feeling a little hurt on Sunday — like I no longer mattered, was not important to family when I didn’t get a Happy Mother’s Day text.

Felt better when, online later that evening, I saw Mother’s Day is not until next Sunday. LOL.

After this morning’s workout, I followed through on getting a post office box.

What a pain in the arse that was.

The initial application for a box was completed online, but then I had to drive to the post office to get the box “activated” ─ bring in a boatload of forms I’d printed out and filled in the blanks, show ID. A process I expected to take no longer than 5/10 minutes.

It didn’t.

The Supervising Clerk could not find my order in the system.

Fortunately, something prompted me to also bring along the confirmation page, which showed the box had been paid for and an order number.

With that proof, the Supervising Clerk had to solve the issue which, after an eternity of investigation ─ going to two different computers, disappearing into the back, she found my order in the system under a different telephone number ─ which, I assume is how the system tracks orders .. by telephone number.

”You put in a different number”, said she.

”I don’t have another number”.

”Maybe you made a mistake typing in”, said she.

Anything is possible, but inasmuch as the number was a Kansas area code, I doubt it.

It was amicable between us as the kinks were cleared up. She was patient and professional. I was calm.

At one point, just to make conversation, she asked, “Have you had a p o box before?”

I replied, no, and told her about the mailbox break-ins saying, “I don’t understand how it keeps happening when there's a camera recording and staff living right over the area”.

”Staff might be doing it”, said she.

Which made me laugh, even though I don’t think so, but my view is from the inside. The Supervising Clerk, and a comment from Dawn the Bohemian ─ about the possibility of staff being involved, are views from the outside looking in ─ so maybe it could be.

Stranger things have happened when people want to surreptitiously express how much they hate their job. Like the time I saw a hazmat team going into the men’s bathroom at the racist agency I retired from. Someone had covered the wall with feces.

True story.

At any rate, once the Supervising Clerk found my order in the system, it was on to completing paperwork, turning in a change of address and I was out ..... after a little over an hour.

The service I signed up for is pretty nifty. I have an actual street address, the change of address form I submitted is specific for the box ... requires the post office to forward any mail coming to my address, here at the complex, into the po box; and I don’t have to drive over and check for mail. The box will notify me, via email, when mail arrives.

So my issue, with the continuous break-ins, has been solved.

As for other residents, it might not be so easily solved. Many are not healthy enough to get to the post office, or do not have transportation. They’re stuck, in limbo, until something can be worked out.

When I stop to think about it, I myself didn’t necessarily need a post office box. I could have allowed myself to live in mail limbo forever, because all the important stuff is handled online, paperless. What I do receive is two or three monthly confirmations that retirement funds have been deposited, quarterly summary of medical costs, junk mail and catalogues.

Hopefully, the junk mail and catalogues don’t make it to the po box.

For others, mail is a lot more critical, because they receive and pay for bills by mail, and depend on monthly checks … disability and otherwise.

On the other hand, though I don’t have checks for the mail box thief to abscond with, the few items I do receive carry personal information I feel safer knowing is now going to a po box, rather than to the mailbox thief to sell.

On tap for tomorrow is Shot No. 1 Pfizer vaccine.

I’ve waited, watched, and something inside tells me it’s time.