Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
Just a short week away from Christmas 2024. We got the decorations up, we put the last of the packages to our loved ones in the mail and we got the majority of our shopping done, just a couple more left. Not bad for a guy that has conflicting issues about this holiday. Carlene loves Christmas and she keeps this house as Grinch-free as she can. She’s very good at it. Instead of biting my head off and fighting with me about my shortcomings, she demonstrates what Christmas is supposed to be and shows me how to love rather than complain. That’s just one tiny reason why I adore this woman and can’t imagine life without her. But there is a price to pay for all this activity and I try to let her sleep in as long as she wants. She works so hard and deserves it.
We have been recipients of some gifts from some wonderful friends that we miss so much. One gift was an Advent jigsaw puzzle that had a difficult time getting delivered. It was mailed in California in plenty of time to make it to Oklahoma so Carlene and her friend could work the puzzles together. Now we are both retired postal workers and don’t like to slam the good ole PO, but as a retired postmaster, I am ashamed of how this package was treated. Apparently, when the label was made to send it on its way to Oklahoma, the clerk got the Elk Grove zip code on it instead of ours. So, when the package went to the plant, it came right back to Elk Grove the next day. Instead of figuring out why it came back and fixing it, they simply sent it back out on the next truck. Well, it came back to them the very next day and what did they do? They just put it back on the truck for Sacramento and it came back to them the next day again. Knowing what I know about working in the post office for 36 years, I can give them the first one. But everything beyond that is unacceptable. This went on for about 5 round trips. We talked with our friend and suggested that she go down to the post office and let the postmaster know what was going on. He should have already known and should have fixed this after it came back a second time. She eventually got the package back and took a picture of it for me to look at. It should have been delivered, there were no mistakes made by the customer.
As postmaster, I would have looked the package over myself, found the error and slipped the whole thing into an express package and sent it on its way to Oklahoma the first time it came back to my office. They had better refund the money she spent for postage. She ended up ordering another gift on Amazon and had them ship it to us. All this took several weeks and it took us a while to get caught up on the puzzle. But that’s not going to spoil our Christmas. We just laughed it off and we acknowledge the fact that the post office is just not as good as it was before all the best employees retired…
Being so far away from most of our family means Christmas for us is not like you see in the Hallmark movies. We at least have daughter Jillian and hubby Tim to share the day. Unfortunately, they are driving to California to spend Christmas there. That’s okay, we’ll just celebrate on a different day. Another wonderful advantage to being retired. It’s also our first Christmas without her mama, so that adds to the stress. Sleep in Carlene, we’ll get through this together.
We have two dogs now and they bring great comfort. Sally is getting up there in age and doesn’t spend as much lap time as she used to. She sleeps a lot and that’s okay. KayDee (AKA PeeWee) is a needy bestie and spends a lot of time on my lap. Sometimes Carlene’s lap too, but she doesn’t sit as much as me, especially in the winter when I don’t have to mow grass 3 days a week.
My dream Christmas would be a Hallmark event with the whole family showing up. I’m not holding my breath for that one. We all know that Hallmark Christmas movies are fairytales anyway… However, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Merry Christmas.
