Wandering in Postal Limbo

A week ago I sent off 141 cool ties for a local marching band, having managed to turn, press, fill, and sew them all in a week. (Yes, one week!!!!) Along the way, I had to buy more fabric and remake 3 ties after they got damaged while trimming threads. My dad got them in the mail right before the post office closed, unaware that he was consigning them to . . . . . .

POSTAL LIMBO!

I finished the last ties late Saturday morning as my mother was trying to sort them by color and cram them into a large flat rate box. (And I do mean cram. My last order of 100 barely fit the same size box. This time around we ended up using rubber bands to compress the darn things so they'd all fit! These ties only weigh about half an ounce apiece, but it's amazing how heavy they can be en masse. According to the postal receipt, the whole package weighed almost 9 pounds!)

Since I had to go to work, my dad took the package to the post office for me. Sometime after I'd gone to work, my mother looked at the receipt and realized that it said the wrong destination. Turns out my customer mistyped her zip code when she gave me her address! She realized it and sent an email with the correct one, but I was in such a swivet about getting them out that day that I didn't check my email that morning. :o( I never knew about her note until I got home from work after 10 p.m., and by then it was too late. They were in . . . . . .

POSTAL LIMBO!

I spent five days emailing my customer and using track & confirm in an effort to find out where my package was. (Thank God I paid extra for delivery confirmation.) Most of the time it seemed to be floating in the postal ether for all I could tell. I don't know whether it was the form Dad filed down at the main post office, or whether somebody just bothered to LOOK and noticed that the zip and town didn't match, but they finally showed up on Thursday. She told me she bagged them up and handed them out that night. :o)

Moral of the story:

1) Always spring for delivery confirmation so you have some idea where your package has been. And most important of all,

2) No matter how rushed you are, recheck the address before you make the label. Otherwise your package may be the one wandering around in . . . . .

POSTAL LIMBO!