Only in a Small Town

You know the saying, "neither rain, nor snow nor sleet keeps the Post Office from delivering the mail." Or something like that. Do you believe it? Today, we do.

All of our snail mail goes to a post office box in Littleton, CO, and our son Eric periodically sends it to us in a USPS Priority Mail box. It usually arrives in 2 or 3 days. Last Wednesday I sent him a text message with a General Delivery address of Tumacacori, AZ. He texted back in the late afternoon, saying he was mailing the package. So Friday we stopped by the Tumacacori Post Office. The mail wasn't there. When I asked about getting it Saturday, the postmaster, Joanne Stupy, gave me a business card with the phone number. Though the post office window isn't open on Saturday, she said someone would be there in the morning until about 10, distributing mail to the post office boxes.

That was impressive. You need to go through an 800 number to reach a post office in most cities. To be told I could call when the post office wasn't really open was very special. I called on Saturday--no mail. I called this morning, again--no mail. I asked if the package could be forwarded to somewhere else, as we were leaving tomorrow. "Yes," she said. So we went to the RV park office to pay for one more night, then we planned to drive to the post office and leave a forwarding address. While we were in the park office, they received a phone call, asking if they have someone named Anderson who was looking for a general delivery package. The woman here looked and said, no one named Anderson. After she hung up, I asked if that was the post office. When she said yes, I pointed out that our name was Andrews--very close to Anderson. She called and found that our mail had been sent to the Amado Post Office--about 1 mile from here. I had put the wrong zip code on the package.

We drove to the Amado PO and picked up the package. It had been delivered there, the zip code changed so it went to Tumacacori, then again sent to Amado. Only then did the postmaster Joanne realize it might belong to the woman who kept calling about a general delivery package. So she called the two RV parks in the area, hoping she could locate us.

Such service would never happen in a city. The box would have sat on the shelf in one of the post offices for the required 30 days or so, then be sent back to Eric. Instead, we received it today. Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor my giving Eric the wrong zip code kept the Post Office from delivering this package. And are we ever grateful!