Raincharm’s Weblog

Living in a big city there are several post office branches that we can use. Which one is visited depends on the task at hand, and how much time can be used for the trip.

Many times there is an associated walk. It can be a mile or two or more. So that’s a factor. And almost always the post office trip is because we are taking something there to mail, or perhaps buying stamps. Carl sends a lot of mail. He is single handedly trying to keep the post office in business, so there are frequent trips.

Today’s trip was for a pickup.

An order had been placed a while ago. And the order was delivered to our house, but one of the items didn’t work out and so the company sent a replacement.

Instead of the normal tracking number and estimated delivery date we got an  email telling us the package is at a USPS Parcel Shop for pickup, with an address. This was unexpected as we assumed a home delivery.

We walked to the address provided, but it was nothing to do with a post office. It was a business that makes light switches. They were very nice but no packages.

I clicked on a different Track Your Package link and it brought up a map showing a Post Office a few blocks away.

This is the Post Office we would not choose for an efficient trip, but not our choice. There were about 6 people in line in front of us. Not a great sign with only one counter person, but there we were.

We got to the front of the line and told them our story. She requested a tracking number.  I hadn’t seen one yet, so I started clicking on anything that looked like a link. Finally the post office tracking number appeared and I wrote it out for the one counter person. She disappeared into the back, and was gone. And continued to be gone while the line grew, and grew, and grew. It felt like an hour but was probably less than 10 minutes before she showed up with our package. Provided ID and we were on our way, apologizing to the 10 or so now in line as we left.

Questions for this interlude: 1) Why didn’t they deliver it to our house as they did before; and 2) Where did they come up with the address the email directed us to initially?

One bonus for this adventure, other than just taking a walk, was finding a pocket park we hadn’t seen before.

This entry was posted on January 23, 2026 at 12:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.