A Postie Story

There is so much we could say about our postmen and the comings and goings of same, as well as the wanderings of our mail.  I wish we had in Australia, the same as in US where we could put mail to go out, in the box and indicate the presence of same with the flag, as on most US residential mailboxes. Alas, we can't. However, there is so much we can say about the goings on in our area, in regards to mail.

We recently had a change in our mailman. We all used to wonder about our previous guy, and why he would come so far down our street, then disappear up a side street - not all that long - and be gone for, as it seemed, hours! Eventually, he would re-commence his run, up towards our house.

It was discovered the reason for the change to 'postie' was some shenanigans of the former mailman. It seems he had a 'dalliance' on his way, with one of the residents. One wonders if he upset her, and she finally dobbed him in, to his bosses.

Now we have our new mailman that does not spend hours and hours getting to us once he hits our street.

A funny peculiar, rather than haha thing happens from time to time. A neighbour up the road from us, actually just ahead of the "T" of our street with theirs, often gets our mail, as we do also, his at times, too! Reason being; we are both the same number but of course in two different streets. It would seem the mail sorters get a bit confused when sorting for our area so the number 48 leaps out at them and they miss the two different street names after the number!

We have a wonderful arrangement with each other, in that we both re-deliver each other's wrongly delivered mail.  Fortunately, it does not happen that often.

However, a past friend on Fanstory, a place where I  do a lot of my writing, recently asked for my help. Being a fellow Aussie from a northern state, she wanted to buy one of our fellow writer's books from America. She is like a lot of older folks and does not like having too many accounts. For that reason she needed help in arranging exchange from Aussie dollars to Greenback money, to purchase the book.

I have never, ever recommended folks sending CASH through the mail. Invariably it would get stolen or some other malicious things happen to it. This lady obviously trusted me to do such a thing as to be the intermediary in her purchase of this book from the USA. So she placed the cash in a card and mailed it to me.

Wouldn't you believe it?! When the posted item arrived, the envelope was OPENED! I immediately had a case of the horrors and complete shock. Without even looking I am saying to myself...
"The money will be gone!" Amazingly as it might seem, the money was still nicely enclosed within the card!

The only way I can explain it is, the opener was an extremely honest person. Otherwise, it was probably wrongly delivered to my neighbour with whom we both share mis-delivered letters. He has subsequently kindly dropped the letter in my box. What a relief! I felt like, had the money been taken I would still feel obligated to the lady in Queensland to make good her contract to buy the book from the USA, albeit at my own cost.

Please be assured that I will never, ever do this again for anyone! Besides all this, International postage has now become so iniquitously expensive it is almost not worth all the trouble to buy internationally anymore.

As I end this story about posties and dramas associated with mail and so on, one more last little suggestion.

When ordering online or through the mail, if you are sick and tired of having to go to your local Post Office to pick up your orders, should they have come when you were not at home, a small suggestion. As long as the goods are not extremely valuable, and you feel confident enough to do it- note on your order for the postie to leave the parcel at your doorstep, or around the back of your place of residence, should you be away when it arrives.  I love this great way of receiving stuff more conveniently in my absence. Particularly if you are more likely to be at home, and you are usually not out and about.

As already stated, I guess the value of the item would condition whether you were happy for it to be left in your absence or not.