I had to blog today, because I feel that I must share this um…well, I don’t quite know how to describe my recent transactions with the post office. I’m just gonna take it from the top and let you all decide what you’d call it.

So, a friend of mine purchased a copy of The Fourth Piece for his friend. He wanted me to sign it and write a personalized letter, so he ended up purchasing the book from me personally. I autographed the book and shipped it media mail to Michigan on September 16th. By September 29th, the package still hadn’t been delivered. In fact, when I checked the tracking, it hadn’t even left the post office. So, I went in to talk to the post office manager. He says:”Oh no, I’ll have to contact consumer affairs. They’ll call you in a few days. We don’t know what’s going on!”

A week goes by. The package is still in limbo. No one knows where it is. On October 7th, I go back to the post office to inquire about it. Now the manager checks the tracking and says: “Oh, it made it to Michigan! They tried to deliver it, but couldn’t leave the package at the door. Looks like people forgot to scan the package as it was traveling, so that’s why we couldn’t track it.”

 

So, uh, what’s the point in a tracking number, man? Anyhoo, I contact the person I’d sent the package to, and she says: “Well, the package came, but the post office says I have to pay $5 to get it, because they’ve declared that what you sent didn’t qualify as media mail.”

Now I’m totally confused. Since when have books not been considered media mail? I even received a letter from the Michigan post office telling me that I owed them $4.76 worth of postage for my non-media mail package with a brochure inside that explained to me what does classify as media mail. And yes, books are on this list. So, again, why was my book not media mail?

In the meantime, I’ve sent the customer another book on October 11th (which still hasn’t been received.) That’s about $40 in the mail, and I’m starting to get a little mad. I’m about to march down to the post office again, when I get a message. The customer went to the post office in Michigan, paid the $5 to have the hostage package released, and opened it to find:

Um… that’s not a book. What the heck is this stuff??? And to top it off, the envelope has obviously been ripped open and clumsily taped back together.

What is going on???

Did somebody remove my book because they thought it was the devil’s work and replace it with prayer and Pokemon?

Or did they just rip off the book and think stuffing the envelope with a bunch of junk and sending it on its way was funny?

Is this not bizarre??? I’m going to show this to my local post office and see what they have to say. But geez…. how does this happen? If I didn’t know the people who placed the order, they might have accused me of being a scamming author. This is craziness.

I get so worried when I mail things now. I jokingly told some co-workers I was going to buy a horse and revive the Pony Express.

All right, I do apologize for this blog post being a rant, but the story was just too strange not to tell. Who does this happen to? Certainly not me…until now.

On a more normal note, I’m actually going to truly commit to Nanowrimo next month. No, I still won’t be working on anything brand new, but I’m going to polish a novel :D. Are any of you doing Nano this year? Good luck to you if you are!

Until next time, take care!