Through rain, hail, sleet, and... um... ?

About the middle of last week, we realized something. We had gotten no mail. All week.

I suggested the hubby go dig out the mailbox a bit more, in case we really HAD mail but the delivery person just decided she couldn't reach the box.

So he did. (A bit more... it was, after all, a frozen solid blob of icy packed snow.) And still no mail.

So Friday I called the post office and asked them to hold our mail for me to pick it up on Saturday. Otherwise, the delivery woman carried it along every day so we had no way to get it, even though by then our mailbox was clearly packed in solid ice, and was not going to change anytime soon.

On Saturday morning, I was able to plan an hour into my schedule to go stand in line at the post office. Apparently they chose the month of record snowed-in mailboxes and held mail to begin a construction project on their service desk area, and now have a maximum of two clerks working. Cars double-park in the undersized marking area, and irritated faces change to shocked as they make it from the parking spot into the building to see the line snaking its way round the interior of the building.

Finally, I made it to the head of the line. And the clerk came back with no mail for me. "She probably still has it with her," he commented. I protested that I had called and they said they would hold it, so he went back to check, and then called her. She hadn't seen the note, but because it was her fault, she agreed to bring the mail to our door, meaning I had to drive back home to pick up the check I had come to get, and then rush back to deposit it at the bank before it closed.

A frustrating day, to say the least. But she delivered our mail to the door. I made it home, and back to the bank with just minutes to spare. I picked up the mail again at the post office on Monday, and got a happy surprise of a line only half as long.

And today, I am planning to pick up yesterday and today's mail. But I get to also tell them they can begin delivering it again. Because today I heard the happy beeping of construction equipment, and looked out the window to see city road crew workers with bulldozers and front loaders out moving the snow off of the edge of the road. To top it off, once they scooped away as much as possible, another guy in a pickup truck finished the job around our mailbox with a shovel.

This deserves a thank you note to the road department, for sure. With the ongoing cold weather, we couldn't make a dent in the frozen blob with our shovels. And the post office workers were clearly unable to reach an extra 6 inches to put the mail into our mailbox.

The newspaper delivery people, however, never missed a day. Maybe they are paid more than the US postal staff, so they have more incentive to try harder.

Doubtful. But they SHOULD be paid more.