Going Postal

Before we left on our vacation, I went to the United States Postal Service's web site and requested a vacation hold for our mail.

I printed the receipt acknowledging the request, which included instructions to hold all mail until we picked it up at the post office upon our return.

We cruised back home this afternoon. Our landlord handed us a pile of mail and said it began showing up four days ago.

What?

I called the phone number on the receipt. I talked to a very nice man named Jay who duly took the information and said that someone would call me on Tuesday.

Just to be sure, Bob and I headed to the Main Post Office in Long Beach to see if they had any more of our mail.

Sure enough, the very nice postal clerk came out with another pile of mail and many apologies.

BTW-two years ago we put our mail on vacation hold. The following January, two days worth of mail postmarked in August showed up in our mail box.

It makes one wonder...

UPDATE: Saturday, Sept 1-I just got a call from a very nice woman from the Long Beach post office. She apologized profusely and said there was absolutely no excuse for what happened. She confirmed my suspicion that our regular carrier was on vacation. She said that they are working on the physical layout of the sorting center that is the root of the problem. She also confessed that the same thing happened to her when she got back from vacation two weeks ago. There. I feel better knowing that we received the same treatment as a postal employee!