Please Mr. Postman

I used to get aggravated when my ex-wife or her daughter shredded my mail, but at least it arrived at my house first. But when she evacuated the house, she put in a Change of Address for herself, forwarding all her mail to a friend's house. Her house wasn't finished yet so she used a friend's address.

For a few months now I have wondered why I get so little mail. Nowadays I'll get just a junk mail postcard on most days, or things that are addressed to "Resident". I rarely see a bill or letter. I just figured that I am much more electronically connected than I thought.

It wasn't that simple. There was something more complex and frightening at work:

The Post Office.

The guys at the post office were forwarding my mail along with my ex-wife's. Our first names are so similar that they couldn't tell the difference. Now my letters are getting around as much as she is.


So I lose a few bills. Who wants them anyway? There will be more where they came from. But there was another problem. The post office not only forwarded my mail mistakenly, they notified everyone that I had moved to her friend's house. Now the electric company and the doctor all think that I am on Cobblestone Court. But I'm not.

Surely others were also notified that I moved. I don't know who, but there will be empty spaces in my mailbox where letters, bills and magazine used to be.

To make it more interesting, she submitted another Change of Address once her new house was ready. So now my mail goes there too. And merchants also think I moved there.

I called the electric company and the hospital to fix the problem. But the next time they send me a bill, the post office will send the same notice out again, thus extending the problem forever.

Let's get to the root of the problem. I went to the post office and told them the problem. They said to call Ray, the route supervisor. I called Ray. He was out so I talked to Ray's stand-in. He understood the problem and said he would put a note on something that will fix the problem. It didn't. Then I talked to the carrier. He understood the problem and said he would fix it. He didn't.

I wrote to the post office, but they never replied. Then I called Ray again and explained it all in detail and made sure he really did understand. He said he would try to fix it but it just might not get fixed. Who knows.

That was a month ago. Since then, I have recovered 12 pieces of mail that went to various places, none of them being My House. Luckily, my ex-wife was human enough to give that mail to me. (Still, I never received my tax information from work and other places.)


How do I stop this? I could try forwarding things to a PO box, but they will screw that up too. I could change my name, but I've used this one for a long time now. I could get a PO box and notify everyone of my new address. But then I am committed to a PO box for a long time. And I don't even know who was notified that I moved!

This is really annoying. So I am sending out three forwarding orders. One to forward my mail from the friend's house to mine. One to forward my mail from my ex-wife's new house to mine, and one to cancel her original forward order.

It's now getting very complicated. I don't know if any of that works but I think I stand a good chance of tearing the fabric of our universe with this circular forwarding. It is entirely possible that this might even open a hole into a parallel universe, and if it does, I'm heading through it.