Mail service problems

I am going on three days of no mail. This is unusual for here. Yes, I know there are New Rules in the Post Office, that, depending upon who you ask, are designed to save money or to undermine confidence in the mail/screw over people dependent upon it.

I get informed delivery which shows me my mail for each day. I started this when I was losing mail a couple years ago (ultimately, someone was arrested in the local post office for theft).

I have not received a card from the card swap I am in for over a month. If anyone has sent me anything it hasn't come. I am going to have to quit the card swap even though that makes me sad and makes me feel like I'm letting others down* but the lack of reciprocity is too depressing, and I don't want people wasting postage on cards that never reach me.

(*I feel a lot like I am letting people down right now - my blog is not more interesting, I can't do volunteer work, I don't have any groundbreaking new pedagogy prepared for if we have to go to all online in the fall, I'm going to fail at this. But failure is my life now, I think, and I just have to learn to live with it. Maybe this is a life lesson: be comfortable with being barely adequate at most things and failing at some things.)

I don't know where my mail is, which is upsetting.

I also had to order a new Oxo measuring cup - one of the nifty slant-read ones, which is the only measuring cup that works for me for liquids, with my bad eyes. The old one, purchased at the sadly-now-closed Hollow Tree got a crack in the bottom - probably from running it through the dishwasher after using it with raw eggs. (And also - well, I get lazy about hand washing some things).

It was supposed to be here Wednesday. It's been stuck in San Marcos, Texas, and a couple other people tell me San Marcos is like a Bermuda Triangle for packages. If it doesn't arrive tomorrow I can request a refund, and you bet that's what I'm doing.

I needed the measuring cups, so I went to the small local shop (Kopper Kettle), which I should have done in the first place, but didn't want to go out among people if I could mail-order. They only had three-cup sets, for more money (but not a LOT more, really) so I bought that.

(Also, minor annoyance: the guy at the counter was ON HIS PHONE and I was standing there for a while, like five minutes. I cleared my throat but I guess he didn't hear me through my mask.. I was on the point of just throwing up my hands and walking out when he saw me there. I HATE that. I hate feeling invisible and these days I feel invisible a LOT of the time. Yes, I know I am too polite but I am not good at making a fuss and I wondered if he was doing something of vital importance for the store but I guess not)

So anyway. If the cup doesn't show up tomorrow I am telling them I want a refund and WHY I want a refund.

It makes me worry though: I live in a town with pretty limited shopping. AND if we get hit with another bad wave and "nonessential" businesses must close again (AND I am not going into wal-mart in person until the plague is over)....AND you can't get stuff delivered by USPS.....well, I guess it's "Make do and mend" time or "do without" time.

(Legitimately: I found myself wondering if I could duct tape the bottom of the cup. I probably could, but it would be ugly and hard to clean and it would bother me DEEPLY every time I used it, because things like that do me a discomfort. And I do NOT need any more discomfort right now.)

I have a couple books on order, see if they make it to me. And I have a Webs order, though it's not been shipped yet....though they sometimes do UPS, and UPS may be a jot more reliable. (Fed Ex, I am still angry with over their treatment of my Imperfect Foods boxes).

I am tempted to address a bunch of cards to myself and drive around and drop them in different mail  boxes (and mark the envelope about where I'm mailing it from) and see how many, if any, make it to me.

I did a version of this back when I suspected the mail thief - recruited a dozen friends who wanted a card but who understood it might not make it to them, and asked them to e-mail me if and when they received it. I think 10 of the 12 cards actually arrived (all the ones I sent from the post office, 3 of the four from my own mailbox, 3 of the four from an on-the-street blue box). That's kind of disheartening - an 83% success rate. I wonder what it would be now, though. And how long it would take.

But I am tired of feeling like literally EVERYTHING is breaking down and failing and it makes me worried because....I am all alone and on my own. I don't have any help and I am not always assertive enough to demand proper treatment (see - the store today). This is also why even though I take a couple "maintenance" prescriptions ( the blood-pressure meds, and one to keep me from coming out in hives) I would NEVER trust to get refills through the mail, not now.

My dad had to do that with his prescriptions (the way CareMark or whoever it was did things) and more than once he had to get an emergency fill-in prescription called to the local pharmacy when the meds didn't show on time. And that was in the happy, blessed before-times and not the reality we have to inhabit now.

Also, none of my Japan Crate things for either July or August are anywhere on the horizon (both have been shipped, but who knows if or when they will arrive). It is tiresome in the extreme, and worrisome when it involves things like bills I have to pay (e.g., my homeowner's insurance) or paperwork I must deal with.

I mean, yeah, maybe we all should be able to rent postboxes? though the local post office is very inconvenient to get to, and I'm not sure I want to pack into a small unventilated space every day with some of the local folks here, who don't take precautions.

(What we MAY have to do? Have mail pick-up stations in neighborhoods, like the boxes at apartments, and the mail delivery guy can just deliver mail to a single spot, that might save time. Though for packages it would be bad unless there was literally a locker for nearly every house)

But yes, this is my annoyance/worry of the day.