Return to Sender

Before I start my rant about our U.S. Postal Service, I have to add a disclaimer: my father-in-law is a postal carrier. I know that many--probably most--are wonderful, dedicated people who do a fantastic job and make our everyday lives a little easier.

However, that is not the case with our mail carrier. I was always taught that, under certain circumstances, the mailbox is a two-way communication device. If the mail has been delivered to the wrong house, or if you have a package delivery slip that needs to be signed, you can leave these items in the mailbox and your postal carrier will respond appropriately. He or she will take away the incorrect mail, or deliver the package.

At our house, this does not happen. When we leave mail in the mailbox, that's exactly where it stays.

Does our mailman think that we're too lazy to bring in all of our mail? Or maybe, because we don't get a lot of mail, he thinks we like to leave some in the box for the next day. To tide us over, as it were.

So now our dilemma is that, if mail is incorrectly delivered to our house, we have absolutely no way to get it back to its rightful owner without excessive time and effort on our part. The other week, I walked a piece of mail a block over and dropped it in their mailbox. Even though I had to walk the dog anyway, I was still irritated. I spent the whole time thinking, "This isn't my job! I shouldn't be delivering mail!"

We've tried leaving the mailbox open, with the mail sticking up so he notices it. We've tried folding the mail over the edge of the box, so it's hanging halfway out. If anyone has another other ideas of how we might convince our mail carrier we actually left that mail there for a reason, I'm open to suggestions.