Peanut Brittle Disappears At Wesleyan Post Office

On December 10th and 11th I made six batches of peanut brittle (and compared them). On the 11th I mailed all the batches, first class mail.

Batches going to Los Angeles, Massachusetts, and New York City arrived at their destinations two or three days later. But eleven days later, when Zed left for home, his still hadn't arrived. His post office? Wesleyan, Connecticut.

Zed went to Israel, came back, and returned to school - a month and 12 days since I mailed that peanut brittle! He went to his post-office, which is on the Wesleyan campus, and found he had three package slips.

1. He stood in the long line.
   
2. He finally got to the front of the line and submitted his three slips.
   
3. The clerk slunk into the back and was gone a long long time.
   
4. He came back with TWO packages and shiftily peered around Ezra as if to "help who's next."
   
5. Ezra said, "But I had THREE package slips."
   
6. The clerk looked sort of surprised, as if he hadn't noticed that! Or perhaps he hadn't noticed he had put only two packages in Ezra's hands.
   
7. He slunk into the back again and was gone a very, very long gone.
   
8. He came back empty handed. The package was lost, somewhere there in the back of the mailroom.
   

Zed and I had already speculated about the Wesleyan mailroom. Other things I've sent him - including medicine - have taken weeks to arrive. We've posited piles and piles of stuff in the back room. Do the demoralized employees simply walk around the piles and pretend they're not there?

Now I see: the Wesleyan post-office is a Bermuda Triangle.

Zed had a surprising reaction. He was so curious about all this, he went right over that same day and got himself a part-time job at that very mailroom!

When the lady there got his application, she said, "I know why you want this job. You want to find out what happened to your peanut brittle."

I'm hoping Zed will share his experiences with us. To be continued...

Technorati Tags: USPS, United States Postal Service, Mystery, Bermuda Triangle