The Postal Service

I know it's lame, considering all of the half-written drafts about deep stuff that I've not touched in ages that should be edited and posted for your pop psych fix of the day. I've even got a really good one that I wrote last night when I got home from a bridal shower.

I shouldn't burden you with this.

But about a month and a half ago I helped with someone else's bridal shower. I wouldn't say helped, but I volunteered to help. (I'm from a relatively large family, something's always happening).

I couldn't go, rarely can. But I said I'd send a check to help cover the cost, and as soon as the woman in charge called and left me the amount, I whipped out my check book.

Truth told, it took me a couple of days to get it into a mailbox. But only a couple of days, or so I thought.

A week or so later I got a call, one of those awful calls that are so hard to make.

TherapyDoc? Uh, did you ever get around to mailing out that
check?

No problem. Yeah! I sent it!

Okay, good, then don't worry about it.

Then a week and a half later, another call. Same thing.

Hate to bother you, but did you send that check? I still haven't got it.

You're joking, I say. How is that possible? I'll bring you a new check, personally. The postal service in Chicago is terrible!

Oh, she says. It's terrible in Morton Grove (a burb), too.

Well that explains it.

Just drop it off at Bobbie's, she says. I'll be seeing her this week.

(Bobbie lives a lot closer to me than she does)

Cool.

And I did. I dropped off a new check at my cousin's. But I squirmed. I was so embarrassed. For sure, I thought, I'm going to find that stupid check when I go through those piles of papers on my desk. It'll be stuck with some bill I haven't paid.

But. . .I JUST got another call! The original check, arrived! The original check! It was postmarked October 18, 2007. Today is November 15, last I checked.

We don't live in Alaska.

This kind of thing can drive a person who suffers from a little anxiety insane. You know how it goes. You say to yourself, DID I mail that check? And if I didn't, what ELSE didn't I mail? And if I did mail it, and the postal service stashed it in a corner on the floor at the Kedzie Station, what ELSE is stashed in a corner on the floor at the Kedzie Station?

But the weird thing is that I sent a bill to a lawfirm last Friday--I'm not making this up. Friday, November 9 it was in the mail. Pick up wasn't supposed to happen until 5:00 pm that day. Monday, November 11, would be a legal holiday. I expected the bill for my services to arrive no earlier than Wednesday the following week.

I'd see my money some day if it didn't get lost in the snow in December.

But I got a check. I got a CHECK in the mail the very next day, November 10.

How's that happen? It had to have been delivered on Friday night or early Saturday morning, processed and mailed immediately, then DELIVERED on SATURDAY!

From now on, this is the only mailbox I'll ever use. We'll call it my lucky mailbox. It's on Lincoln and Catalpa, someplace around there. Feel free to try it.

It could be that there are people who really do work over there at the US Postal Service.

And miracles never cease.

FD, you should know, upon hearing the story suggested that I take a better systems approach. It's your handwriting, he said. Could be.

therapydoc