The Case of the Missing Postage Stamp

On Sunday it will be Teach's 22nd birthday! She has been the kind of girl who just loves birthdays. In fact, she reminded me that we needed to have a party and eat cake for her even though she wouldn't be here. I have to tell you that is a little stressful for me.

I have been trying to figure out how to make her first birthday away from home a happy one. So today I made a little flier with detachable address labels and dropped it by her old work with a comment to please send her a birthday card. I also took a little stack to Curves for her friends there. Drama Queen passed her address around on Facebook with the same plea. We are hoping that tons of her friends will respond by sending her a card.

That's when I got the bright idea that instead of putting all of our birthday wishes into one box, the kids could each send her a separate card in the mail! I happened to pick up these bright pink envelopes cheap when Xpedx went out of business here in Salt Lake, and I've addressed about a dozen of them today. Then Drama Queen made individual cards for each kid and adult to write a little message and then mail. Here's the one she made for Princess.

I had about half of them ready to go to the Post Office when I had to leave for Scout's softball game, so I left them sitting on top of the calendar waiting to be stamped and placed in the mail box. While I was gone, the Dog Walker called me and asked if he should drop them at the post office when he took Crafty to dance. Their studio is right by the post office.

"Sure!" I replied. "There's a brand new sheet of stamps in my purse that I just bought." Then I hung up my cell and went back to keeping score. About 15 minutes later he called me again. "Mom," the worry was evident in his tone. "Don't these letters need stamps? I put them all in the box and then I saw that they didn't have stamps so I grabbed one out but the rest of them fell in."

It was terribly difficult to have this conversation and still keep track of the advancing runners, not to mention the balls and strikes. "What?!" I was beside myself. "I told you there were stamps in purse!" He disagreed and the conversation went back and forth while he argued that he thought I put the stamps on even though he could clearly see that I hadn't. Finally I told him that he caused this problem and he'd better figure out how to get those letters back or Teach would never get them. Then I snapped my phone shut before he could say anything more.

OK, I confess, I hung up on him. Five minutes later he called me again. "The post office is closed, Mom. Nobody is there." I sighed. "Did you go inside?" He admitted that he had. "Did you knock on the door?" No, he hadn't knocked on the door. So once again I hung up and left him to his own devices.

Scout struck out. This was not a good day.

A couple of minutes later my phone rang again. "There isn't anyone there," he lamented. "Yes, there is," I insisted. "I was in the post office a few days ago and there was someone in the back long after things were shut down. Just yell that you need help through the slot." He snorted, "You can't yell in the post office!" I assured him that if there was no one there then no one would hear him yell anyway, so go ahead. Then I hung up the phone again.

About 10 minutes passed before my phone rang again. "I got them back!" I could hear the pride in his voice. "There was a lady back there and she came out to the box outside and helped me get all the pink envelopes out."

"Was she angry?" I couldn't help but ask. "No," he answered, "she was really nice." He paused, "She just reminded me to put the stamps on next time before I mail the letters and then she went back inside."

I smiled to myself. There truly are some good people in this world who are willing to help. Sometimes you just have to be persistent to find them...and maybe a little autistic as well.