Home Delivery

When I first moved to Celina back in the 80s, I was encouraged to get a box at the post office rather than opt for home delivery. I was told that if I had a mailbox in front of my house that I would be given a rural route box number. (I saw the number - it was a series of numbers and letters that appeared to have been selected at random.) I was also told that if anyone else moved into the area and wanted to be on the rural route that my box number might change. It didn't seem sensible to me at the time and it seems less sensible now but arguing with a government employee is typically not a productive undertaking. (And at that time, that guy was the only postal employee in town - no chance of coming back later and getting a different answer.) But having to do the change of address thing is bad enough when you move - I certainly didn't want to do it if someone else moved. I was assured that the PO Box number would never change.

Which was good, because no sooner had I bought the house and moved in than the street number was changed. That was fine. I'd never had a chance to get used to the old number. Thankfully, that hasn't happened again.

When I moved here the population was something like 1500 people. Today it exceeds 69,000. Even though they've expanded the post office, they just don't have enough boxes for thousands of people. So home delivery is a better option than it was before. At least in theory.

We thought we'd try it because it would eliminate the cost of the post office box, it's more than doubled over the last 35 years - but then what hasn't? We thought we'd keep the PO Box until we were sure that all the mail was being delivered to the street address and no mail (other than junk) was going to the PO Box.

That experiment lasted a few months. During that time some of my bills didn't get delivered. When you have a history of paying your balance in full and on time every month, a plea of "I didn't get the bill" will get the interest charges and late fees reversed for you. But you can't do it very often. You can't do it as often as I wasn't getting the bills. I ended up creating a spreadsheet listing all the bills and when they were typically due making it very easy for me to see when I didn't get one so I could call and request a duplicate or download a copy of it online.

But the problems with home delivery didn't end there. There was the party invitation. I'd been told about the party- not the specifics, (like date and time) but I knew there was to be a party. Fortunately, when I hadn't called in my rsvp, a friend called to ask. I never got the invitation. Had it not been for my friend calling me, the acquaintance having the party might have thought me rude and anti-social for not responding. (We did go and it was lovely.)

But wait, there's more! This one is actually the topper. I'd ordered a DVD from Amazon. When it didn't show up at the appointed time, I checked with Amazon and was told it had been delivered the previous week. They asked me to check with the post office. The counter clerk at the post office told me she'd check with the carrier. His response? "I delivered it somewhere."

Amazon replaced the DVD and about a month later, someone knocked on my door to hand me a DVD that had been delivered to him in error. He apologized that it had taken him so long to get it to me, but he'd been busy and just hadn't opened his mail. Clearly, the carrier had delivered it "somewhere".

And if all that wasn't enough, our mailbox has been hit more than once. The first time it happened, we were out of town and my neighbor picked the mail up out of my yard and reset the box. The second time it happened I replaced the box with a heavy gauge steel model. It's happened a couple more times since then. (The evidence is usually a small dent in the box and a wing mirror in my front yard.) The last time the person who hit it managed to hit it hard enough to bend the frame so we couldn't get the door open. (Only one person has ever stopped to take responsibility for the damage.)

That sent Mark flying to the post office with an order to redirect all mail sent to the street address to the PO Box. We would no longer have home delivery.

Now I have a new problem. When I order something online and enter a PO Box, I am often told that the order cannot be delivered to a PO Box so I am forced to use my street address. And for years that was fine because UPS and FedEx brought things to my house. Well now both UPS and FedEx sometimes, (but not always) take things to the post office. So I'm now faced with the situation that UPS and FedEx will not deliver to my PO Box and the post office will not deliver to my street address. Last week I ordered three items from Amazon. One box was delivered to my street address by UPS. The other two were delivered to the post office by UPS. It was all ordered at the same time - same order number. I am just not in a position to try to guess how (or where) Amazon will choose to ship something. The only choices you have are how much you want to pay for the shipping (I like free!) - you never get to choose the carrier.

I think the way to solve the problem going forward is to fix the door so it opens and then remove the forward order so that home delivery can resume.