As usual, I think I’m making excuses for my bad behavior. Way back when I bought quilting fabric, my position was this: I never lived closer than 40 miles to a good quilt shop. Most of the time, it was more like 2 or 3 hours to a good quilt shop. If a quilt idea popped into my head in the middle of the night, did I want to drive from Owensboro, KY to Nashville, TN to buy fabric? No. Did I want to order a brown and hope it was the right shade? No! I would order four (or more) browns and hope one worked and the other three would be in my stash for the next time I needed them. It worked well for me and I could and still can make almost any quilt from my stash. I look at it as money in the bank. And while I’m talking about that . . how many of your family and friends passed away and left money in the bank? What’s the difference in leaving fabric that I truly intended to use . . and leaving money? I see no difference. My heirs might disagree but by the time they’re dealing with it . . I will be far removed from that situation.
Same thing with yarn. No yarn shop nearby. Now, most anything I want to make, except for the shawls calling for silk lace . . I can make it from my stash. Having the things I need here, whether it’s food, fabric, toiletries, or soap, I like knowing it’s right here where I can get to it.
You know where this is going . . beads! Every shawl pattern I’ve fallen in love with lately has had beads. They’re always optional but . . maybe in my old age I want to sparkle! Who knows?
So, I’ve been ordering beads . . and more beads . . you can imagine. Saturday I had a bead order that was supposed to arrive. I had been watching the tracking. Imagine my frustration when I saw this:
Tracking Info
Post Office Box? I don’t have a post office box! It wasn’t addressed to a post office box. I was so hopeful that it was a mistake and the mail lady would have my beads. No! I had another package so I asked the mail lady . . are you sure there’s not one more? Nope! I filled out the form on the USPS website, figuring . . typical government service, I’ll never hear from them. I was so wrong!
When I got up yesterday morning, the first email I saw was from the USPS website and it wasn’t just a form email. They had read my complaint and promised I would hear from someone at the local post office. Right . . I doubted that. We left the house about 8 for our trip to Abilene and just as we were leaving town (I wasn’t driving), I checked my email and had a personal email from the manager at our local post office. She explained how it happened. It was never put in someone’s box but had been accidentally put in the bin of mail that goes in the boxes. As of Monday morning, my package was already with our local mail lady and would be delivered today. I called the manager back (she had provided the phone number) and thanked her. Very nice. Very efficient. Not words I’ve used to describe the USPS for a long time. I’m impressed!
My beads are here, safely in the Rubbermaid “Bead” container, all entered on the bead spreadsheet. My problems are so easily solved!
Emma says
If you ever want to get rid of some fabric between now and June I’ll be a county over…after that I’ll be living in New York so probably wouldn’t be helpful. Not that I *need* new fabric…I’m only 20.5 yards in the red on my stash report (I still do it on my blog because I do want to use more than I acquire…).
dezertsuz says
I have been lucky to often have great USPS service. I think there’s enough competition now that all the major package delivery servers are on their best behavior.