Complication

I'm sure you've heard these words in relation to the U.S. Postal Service:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Well.

I'm here to tell you . . . Lies!

See.  Here's MY mailbox.

 

Covered with snow.

Completely covered.*

Actually, it's kind of buried in the snow.

Just like all the rest of the mailboxes on my street.

Turns out . . . if the mail man/woman can't access your mailbox, they don't deliver your mail.

Sometimes for days at a time.

Which puts a bit of a damper on the Month of Letters!**

==========

*  During a Winter Like This One, you really have to stay on top of your mailbox situation.  Tom was out of town last week, and the snow (and snow plow "leavings") really piled up.  It was too icy and heavy (those plow chunks. . .) for me to handle, so we didn't get mail for a couple of days.  Tom dug us out on Saturday.  (Photos above are post-dig-out.)

**  At least we live on a not-frequently-plowed street.  Mailboxes on main streets . . . don't fare so well!  See?  No mailbox.  Certainly no mail delivery!  (Happens all the time on main streets.)

 

Comments

[margene]

Well, I get that if they can't find the box they can't deliver the mail. Plows not only cover the mailbox they can take it down if hit just right. Hope the mail person finds your box now that it's well marked with a red pole. Good work, Tom!

[Marilyn]

Mail carriers dedication has slipped since that poem was written, that's for sure. At the farm, if they can't drive up just perfectly and reach it from their car, you don't get your mail. So the post office wants the mailbox close to the road and the hiway dept wants it back so that the plows don't hit it. There's no winning!

[Carole]

That old postal service motto is crap! I won't go into how often my mail carrier misdelivers mail, etc. The rates keep going up, though. LOL.

[Patty]

We once had a basket on the door for a mailbox which was delivered to for years. And then one day it wasn't "Post Office approved" so they took it! And then someone went postal. ;-)

[Debbie]

I grew up in upstate NY and remember helping my Dad shovel out the mailbox every time it snowed!

[Susan]

Our mail is delivered to a box at the end of the driveway by a mailman in an official Post Office truck. He must be able to drive up to the mailbox and reach the box w/o getting out of the truck. Big snowfalls mean BIG piles left at the foot of the driveway and in front of the mailbox, and that snow is VERY hard to move! My husband and I still do our own shoveling of the driveway, deck, steps and sidewalks. But this year we are both officially old enough to collect SS, so we have treated ourselves to a plowman who comes by in his pickup truck and picks up and/or pushes away the stuff at the end of the drive and in front of the mailbox that the city plows leave. What a gift!

[Mary]

oh yeah, we found this out a few weeks ago! and there wasn't even snow or ice and Saturday's letter was still sitting in the mailbox this morning when I added today's card on top of it. I think we have a good argument to make June or September be the months of letters!

[Cookie!]

Wow! You really do live in an igloo, don't you? ;^)

[pacalaga]

Huh, I must have the only good mailperson in the country! Though I suppose since we don't get any snow, that may be an unfair comparison.

[Erin]

The one benefit to having a tiny box inside an apartment complex, I suppose.

Though this is, of course, countered by the fact that the my mailbox is designed to hold one or two small envelopes. Not bill-sized envelopes. Or the Pennysaver. Or a magazine. Or another Pennysaver shoved into the previous Pennysaver (this happens more than you might expect).

[kmkat]

Our mail carrier had to leave two humorously illustrated notes to tell us to plow out our mailbox. Once we finally got a real snowplow-er, we have been getting mail again :-)