A Jericho Legend
Lost Packages
Bernie Paquette
After years of packages being delivered to the wrong address, or being recorded by the delivery agency as delivered but not actually arriving at the addressed destination, the residents of the town of Jericho, Vermont decided to finally take action - a decisive stroke, a firm ballpoint pen letter, written in the stern language of an austere retired schoolmarm.
Now this being a small town, bent on continuing its tradition of town meetings - everyone gets to have their say; townfolks sought comments, created a fact-finding committee, researched countless Front Page Forum notices of missing or lost packages, and drafted and reviewed findings, to set forth a genuinely unified and democratic voice of concern if not supplication.
Before posting the letter, so as not to look to be acting precipitously, volunteers relentlessly scoured bushes and fields for evidence of windblown, or bear-snatched packages. None were found, though six dogs partying together imitating howling coyotes and six cats stalking birds while themselves being stalked by a Fisher were found and returned to their owners.
After a year of preparation, and more unsuccessful package scouting, using a specially trained bloodhound, an Amazon package-o-meter, and a UPS fast tracker, the day of reckoning had come. Town Meeting Day had arrived. Folks scurried into MMU and packed the high school auditorium so tight that a good amount of bubble pack was required to keep elbows from causing damage to ribs.
Folks from every address brought photos of their empty rural mailbox. Not a one was nondescript. Each had been artistically decorated, some copper boxes intentionally pitted and dented, some flowered, some carried the image of a happy homeowner with a package received in her arms; each box uniquely designed or appareled or artistically enamored to make it stand out from all the rest thereby highlighting the house number to which packages are delivered as a newborn to its own true mama. The house number on some being large enough to be seen from Mars given a decent pair of bifocals.
Over an hour and a half, the town business was addressed, voted on, and completed including budget expenditures, water and sewage, housing, and other complex matters.
Next, the final draft (letter) was read - the letter the town would send to all those who the matter concerned: UPS, FedX, USPS, the Association of WE DELIVER Somewhere, and the Package organization - We Delivered, Now You Find It / Its not our problem.org.
Over the next two hours and twelve minutes, nearly every word of the proposed letter addressing missing and lost packages was dissected and made decisive yet dignified.
Not a soul had left the room since the onset of the letter's delineation, in fact, there were now folks standing outside the jam-packed room, listening in from the hallway. After much deliberation, the moderator having listened to many stomachs growl and eyeing the clock signifying dinner time was setting faster than the sunset, pounded the gavel with authority announcing the end of the wordsmith agonizing. It was time to take action.
With a lack of formality or precedence, the weighty, in fact, hefty letter of brief but formal appraisal of the situation, followed by a stern indication of frustration, ending with a declarative of threatened succession from the package delivery institutions of America, was stuffed into a large envelope which was then placed into an extremely large box with hundreds of post-delivery messages of packages that had never arrived at their intended destinations.
The total weight of the package was estimated at twenty-eight pounds.
Approximately seven hundred forever stamps were placed on all sides, top, and bottom of the box, leaving just enough room for a brightly colored, glittering, glow-in-the-dark, flashing neon, address label, that chimed warning tones when the package was moved in the wrong direction - that being not in the direction of the intended receiver.
The room released a breath of dutiful, diplomatic, and decisive relief.
Town Meeting was adjourned for the year.
Spring came the day before summer on par for Vermont, and summer brought birthdays, and anniversaries on par for Vermont, however, packages still did not arrive, at least not to their intended locations, again on par with the experiences of the residents of Jericho, Vermont.
The quiet folks of Jericho, though, are patient. Electricity fails, we can manage. Wells dry up, we can manage. The housing shortage, we are working on it. Dirt roads are no worse in spring than the craters on the moon, we can manage, mostly. Ongoing lost and missing deliveries, here the line of patience has been crossed.
Finally, the next town meeting rolled around following another Christmas season of searching for missing packages, dogs, and cats. Finding pets but not packages.
The good news, whispered about town and chewed over coffee in the Jericho Country Store, was that the town was set to receive a large financial prize for having the greatest variety of creative, and beautifully decorated rural mailboxes of any city or town in the country.
The golden plaque and one thousand-and-twelve dollar prize (ironically equating to one dollar per lost or missing package) had been mailed to the town three months prior.
Folks rolling into the town meeting, another record overflow, all seemed intent on discussing the lost and missing package letter BEFORE other town meeting business. And so the agenda was modified accordingly.
First up the Select Board reported that in fact, a package had arrived at town hall, merely an hour earlier.
Written on the top corner of the box instead of a return address, “All our facilities are experiencing a particularly heavy load right now”. “If this is not your package, please be decent enough to get to the right address.”
The room grew silent enough to hear a knife slice open the letter attached to the top of the package addressed to the Honorable members of the Jericho, Vermont U.S. (or thereabouts) Community.
The Chair of the Selectboard began to read the letter aloud. Folks in the hall asked that the microphone be brought closer.
To the honorable members of the Jericho, Vermont Community,
We here at the association of on-time, right place every time, happy to assist with any concerns, and proud to have real people empowered to help you at our service desks, have received your letter of consternation.
To be fair, we must tell you that we had great difficulty in reading your letter as our barcode scanners are not capable of reading even the most scholarly penmanship. In the future please use barcodes to communicate with our shipping organization. Thank You for your attention to this matter.
Of course, there must be an error, (perhaps) this letter was misdirected to our organization, surely we would have heard of such concerns, would they be valid, long ago.
It is our experience that 99.99999999999999999999% of our associate's deliveries are on time, to the correct address, except those that are not. In that case, upon a thorough investigation, we generally find one of the following circumstances or causes which are beyond our control.
- A bear has eaten grandma's insufficiently wrapped cookies after dragging the package into the woods.
- The husband of the house has eaten grandma's wrapped cookies and discretely disposed of the now empty mailing packaging.
- A snowplow has buried the package while miraculously leaving the mailbox untouched.
- A lost or missing dog or cat has carried away the package. (In this case, we suggest searching for lost and missing cats and dogs and finding out where they buried the package.)
- Mailbox is color-coded instead of barcoded
- Driver's Errant GPS (THATS NOT OUR FAULT)
- Velocity error - Mailbox velcro fails to adhere to the package thrown from the delivery truck to the mailbox as the truck drives by. (Our driver's schedules do not allow for stops unless they give up a pee break.)
- Vermont is a very small state - difficult enough to find it, then you have snow and dirt roads, that make it, like, way hard to get to you. And gosh sake alive, you have a lot of TREES.
We can provide you more excuses reasons for lost or missing packages, just send us your address and we will get them right out to you or at least someplace close to you.
By the way, what’s up with all the psychedelic mailboxes? They are very distracting to our drivers.
Lastly, our customer service center would like to point out the benefits of lost and misdirected packages (NOT CAUSED BY US - IE NOT OUR FAULT) - exchanging packages builds a sense of belonging and community interaction - sort of like re-gifting.
As a token of our appreciation for your business please find enclosed in this box a wonderful gift, if indeed we did scan the correct item before it was packaged; if not, you know the line by now, THAT'S NOT OUR FAULT.
Sincerely,
Anonymous representative of the Association of Shoddy Shippers
Addendum:
So what’s the best way to find a “lost” package?
Initiate a “dock sweep” with your neighbors at each yard along the planned route. Once completed, if your parcel is not recovered you’ll end up dealing with an OS&D&CSI clerk at a centralized location somewhere in India, who can file a formal trace for you with the carrier. This should initiate a “dock sweep” on a larger scale (on Mount Mansfield) to find your lost parcel.
Always be sure to include a good description of your carton, including color, markings, labeling, and dimensions even though you have never seen it. It’s also a good idea, when shipping to Vermont, to never write the address in a font smaller than 789.
Your parcel may be searched by customs agents while in transit, and placing the label with a Vermont location will increase the likelihood your shipping address may not be recognizable as a valid location when your shipment is cleared for delivery.
* Photos of mailboxes: https://jerichovermont.blogspot.com/2022/05/jericho-vt-mailbox-art.html
Great writing!
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