May 21, 2019 3 min read

I have only recently discovered a cool feature offered by the United States Postal Service. Called “Informed Delivery,” it sends me an email every day letting me know what to expect in my mailbox. It is generally a lovely concept that I have been using for approximately six months.

At about nine in the morning every weekday and Saturday, my phone buzzes to let me know I have received an email. When I open said email, I see photographic images of the letters I can expect to receive that day. Sometimes, the mail shown in the preview doesn’t arrive until the next day, but it has been nice to know what to expect, especially when I’m waiting for a paycheck to arrive.

Only when all the mail shown has arrived do I delete the email, because there is also an option to click the image and mark it as “did not arrive” after a couple of days if something is missing. Then the post office is notified to look for it and attempt to track it down for me. I think it is pretty cool.

However, the funny thing is that, four or five times in the last two weeks, the system has been weird. I have still gotten the notification that the email is in my box like normal, but when I open it, there is a cartoonishly drawn envelope and the message “Mailpieces that we do not have an image for are included in today’s mail.”

That seems a bit ridiculous to me. I don’t see the benefit to being told that I will likely have mail in the box today, but nobody knows what it is. I presume every day that I will have mail in the box despite not knowing what it is. Why send an email out if it has no pertinent information?

I suppose some folks would be upset if the email didn’t come at all, though, and I imagine the Postal Service realizes it will never be able to please everyone at the same time. Truth be told, I actually imagine that the emails are generated automatically with no human thought into what each individual may desire. So please understand I’m not really even meaning to complain.

I just get excited about the email and then disappointed about its content. It’s kind of fun to call home and ask if a certain piece has arrived. It freaks my husband out a little. (Yes, I know that is indicative of having no life.)

While I wait to get a proper notification, I suppose I have no choice but to revert back to the old-school method of mail, which is simply to wait until I get home. Be glad you can’t hear my heavy sigh. Also know that I understand how spoiled this complaint makes me.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.