Address Unknown

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a paper credit card statement.   I love getting mail, even if it's just a credit card bill, it's just so satisfying opening up the mailbox and seeing something there waiting for me! A paper credit card statement  is the perfect kick-in-the-pants reminder I need to pay that bill.  I know, electronic statements are more eco-friendly, but I end up having to print a copy anyway, so I can tick off all the entries and make sure it all adds up.  And emails can get lost in my inbox too easily.

A few months ago I realized I had not been receiving my statements for the credit card from the bank that we do all our banking at.  It hadn't been a problem, because sometimes I pay the card off early because my accounting software warns me that a payment is coming due, but I wanted to figure out what was going on.

I called the bank, they said, "call the credit card people."

I called the credit card people, they said, "On our end we can see that you are getting the paper statements, so you should be getting them, but in the meantime we can send you a copy. Maybe that will kickstart the statements getting sent."

A week later I received the copy of the statement.  Now it's been over a month, still no statement. 

So, today I called the credit card people.  They said, "We show that we have sent the statements out every month. Call the mail people."

I called the mail people. They said, "what's your mailing address?"

I gave them my mailing address. It's not a pretty address, it looks like this:

Box 4, Site 5, RR 6 

Cool Town, AB 

A1B 2C3 (that's the postal code)

They rattled it back to me and said, "PO box ...."

I said, "No, it's a community mailbox. Not a PO Box."

They asked for my physical address...

Here's where it gets tricky. I live in a subdivision created when a farmer sold a chunk of his land decades ago. So there are about 30 houses with the same address, and then a house number.  Similar to this:

12345 Hwy 67

#89

Cool Town, AB

A1B 2C3 (notice it's the same town and postal code)

But about 6 years ago, they built a new highway a little bit South of us, so now our highway is:

Hwy 67A.  But if you look on google maps, or any other GPS system, our new address doesn't exist. So what we have done for parcel deliveries is googled my house, and it gives a pretty random address based on the town 2 km West of us.

89 Random st

Neat Town, AB

A4D6N2 (very random)

But I have been told by the county people that the google address is NOT the address I should give if there's an emergency at my house.  I need to give the updated address with "Hwy 67A".

I told the mail guy my physical address, and he couldn't find it in his system (no big surprise there).

Then the mail guy said to me, "First we have to deal with your problem with your address before we can deal with the credit card statement problem.  I have entered a ticket into the system that we have to figure out your correct physical address.  You will be contacted by October 11."

I am eagerly awaiting  the official correct address of where I live!

December Mail

Chancery & I were walking up the street this afternoon.  I had just gotten the mail from the mailbox, & Chancery asked, "Did we get any mail?"

Me: "Yes, three pieces."

Chancery: "Is it all for us?"

We still get mail for the people who used to live here, so it was a valid question.

Me: "Yes, it's all for us."

Chancery: "Is it our first Christmas card?"

Me: "Nope, it's bills."

At that point we were passing a neighbour who was shovelling her driveway.  "That's all I got too," she said.

Chancery: "Maybe tomorrow a card will come!"

The Gift

Since my brothers & I all live far from where our parents live, my mom sent us a few presents for Christmas.  My mom has a tradition of buying the same/similar things for us (to keep it even so we don’t fight!), & after she sent our packages, she wanted to make sure they had arrived.  She sent us a group email…

 

Mom:

Hi Everyone,

Did everyone get their book we sent?

Love to all.

Dad and Mom

 

Me:

It's a book? Well now you've ruined the surprise!

 

Brian:

We have received the present but have not opened it yet.  Isn't one of the best parts of Christmas the anticipation? :)

 

Me:

Oh for sure!  I felt the present & had a few guesses...  Something from Ikea, a ream of paper, a package of cookies, I can't WAIT to find out what's really in there!

 

Kurt:

I thought maybe it was a book but it was wrapped so I put it under the tree since there was nothing else there yet.

I guess I could have smelled it, maybe it is a box of chocolates. (life is like that)

Love Kurt and family.

 

Mom:

Well you might be surprised!  I was asking because I sent it media rate, which was a lot cheaper, but I didn't know how long it would take to get to you.  They also told me they could open the package to check if it really was media and I better not have anything else in there!

 

The anticipation was killing us, but we held off opening until Christmas.  It WAS a book after all!  My uncle had recently written his memoir, & my Mom got us all signed copies!  (She had also included him on the email thread, so he could see all the excitement building for the big reveal!)

Oh Mr. Mailman!

When we were on our trip in Newfoundland, Asher left his Nintendo DS cord at one of the cottages we had stayed in.  When I called the place to ask if they could ship it to us, they informed me that it would cost about $20 to ship & advised me to just get a new cord.  So, I went on eBay & ordered a new cord, but since it was being sent from the States, it had to clear customs.  After about 2 weeks without a cord, Asher wrote this note to the mailman…

 

“Mum ordered a DS cord (Nintendo DS cord)  Pleeeeeeease can we have it?  -Asher and Mum-  (What’s your name anyway???)”

Party Crasher

As we pulled into the driveway the other day, I noticed a box sitting on our front steps.  Yumi had been waiting for a package from her Mum for a few weeks, so I knew she’d be glad it had finally arrived.

 

“Oh, Yumi’s package finally came in the mail today!” I said.

 

Asher: “I want to open it for her!”

 

Me: “No, you can’t do that.  It’s not nice to open someone else’s mail.”

 

Asher: “But I want to!”

 

Me: “Then I’m going to open all of your birthday presents.”

 

Asher: “I won’t invite you to my party then!”

Alternate Payment

When we lived in Alberta, I worked at a Western Shop.  We sold everything from saddles & tack, to clothing & furniture.  A huge part of the business was conducted through mail-order, & I worked in that department.  My job involved taking orders over the phone, going through the store & collecting the various items, packing the orders & shipping them out.  I got really good at knowing what would fit in each box, & approximately how much each package would cost to ship with each various company.

 

We had 3 methods of delivery, Canada Post (which was generally slower & a bit pricey), Courier (super fast, but also pricey), or Greyhound (pretty cheap, depending where you lived, it could take as little as 1-2 days).  Most people who ordered chose to have their items shipped with Greyhound, which was fine with us.  They had a flat rate for small items, so it was easy to know what to charge the customer, & the people were really nice who ran the local depot.

 

After working at the store for a few months, my supervisor realized that in our contract with Greyhound, the local depot was supposed to come & pick up our parcels daily.  When we talked to the people there, they said that they didn’t actually have the people available to do that.  There was generally only one person in the depot at a time. 

 

After a lot of negotiation, it was decided that they could pick up our parcels at 1:00pm everyday, they’d just have to have an employee come over just at the shift change.  It was a nice change to not have to stop what we were doing twice a day to deliver our parcels to the depot, but there was a 10am bus that we were missing every morning due to their pick-up availability.  So, I kept bringing the parcels for the morning bus, & sometimes I’d bring another load for the 3:30pm bus.  Quite often we’d end up calling the depot to tell them we didn’t have anything to pick up at 1:00, since I had already brought everything for the morning bus.  But by 3:30 we’d have another load, so off I’d go.

 

As the summer wore on, the lure of the drinks cooler at the depot got more & more tempting.  I never carried cash at that time, since debit cards were accepted everywhere, it was never really a problem, but there was a sign on the register which read, “No credit/debit for transactions under $10.”  So, I resisted for awhile, but one hot day, I HAD to have a lemonade, so I took one out of the cooler, walked over to the register & asked, “I know the sign says it’s not allowed, but could you make an exception, just this once?”

 

The cashier (who also owned the depot) replied, “Well, it would actually cost me less to GIVE you the lemonade than it would to ring it through, so you can have it.”

 

A few days later, I remembered to bring cash, & after unloading my truck I grabbed a lemonade & went to the register.  The cashier told me, “Just take it, in fact you might as well just take one everyday since you’re making it easier on us by bringing everything here.”

 

And that is how I got paid in lemonade, for delivering western tack to the bus depot.

Mail call!

A few days ago we received an envelope in the mail from PChad’s Mum.  Enclosed in the envelope were some Valentine cards for the kids, so I set them aside & waited for the kids to get up from their naps.

When they came downstairs for their snacks, I told Asher that Grandma had sent a card for him & a card for Chancery.  I held them both up & asked which one he thought was for him.  He correctly pointed to the one for him, so I asked how he knew that that one was his.

I expected him to say something along the lines of, “Because it has a letter ‘A’ on it, and my name starts with ‘A’,”  but instead I got a much simpler answer…

Me: “How do you know that card is for you?”

Asher: “I know by my eyes!”