I Am So $#@%@$#$# Mad at the United States Post Office!

Tomorrow is Easter.  Because my daughter and my sister both love chocolate as much as I do,  I decided to send them each an Easter Basket Box via the United States Post Office.  They guarantee two day delivery for Priority Mail, so I filled two small boxes to the lids with jelly beans, chocolate eggs, and chocolate bunnies.  I paid $4.90 each to mail them off on Wednesday afternoon and they both arrived at their respective destinations on Friday as promised.  Clara's was fine.  All Barb received was my note and the jelly beans.  All the chocolate -- her favorite -- was gone. 

I went to the Post Office this morning to complain.  The same woman who waited on me Wednesday was there.  She was useless.  Because I didn't take insurance out on the package (insure a chocolate bunny?) there was nothing she could to do to help me.  I explained to her that the box had obviously been opened -- it arrived taped together at Barb's house and I didn't tape it before I sent it.  She said maybe it popped open and someone taped it up again.  If so, why keep the chocolate and only put the note and the jelly beans back in the box?  And if the Post Office damages a package, they usual affix a note saying so to the box.  I think someone heard me tell the woman it was Easter candy when she asked me if there was anything hazardous, perishable, etc. in the box and then proceeded to open it, eat the chocolate, and then sent it on its way.  Could have been the woman herself for all I know.

This mail fiasco comes on the heels of another.  I mailed a rug pattern purchased from my eBay store to a customer in California.  Once again I sent it priority mail so it would be there in two days.  A week later I get an email: no pattern.  So I draw out a new one, pack it up, take it to the Post Office and mail it priority with delivery confirmation, an extra $1.50.  I sent the customer a nice note and a gift, apologizing for the Post Office and asking that she let me know if the other pattern ever arrives.  They both appeared on her door step on the same day.  I told her to keep it, but she insisted on mailing it back -- so the Post Office made an extra $10 or so off my $20 pattern.

And here's another Post Office story: Two months ago a friend in upstate New York returned some rugs I had on consignment in her shop.  She mailed them to my Post Office box, which I gave up about 6 months ago.  I started to panic after about three weeks, sure my rugs were in some dead letter office somewhere.  My sister told me to go down to the Post Office and ask them to look around.  I did -- the package was sitting on the floor in a corner.  So why didn't they send it back to the person who mailed it?  Why didn't they forward it to me?  My village covers one square mile.  I know everyone in the Post Office to say hello to.  Why didn't someone tell me the package was there?  Why leave it sitting on the floor for three weeks?

No wonder they can't turn a profit.