return to sender: no longer at this address

background entertainment: "Stargate SG-1," SciFi Channel

Picked up my mail today and found a utility bill along with the magazines. Odd, that; I just received my utility bill a week ago. I figured it was a misdelivery (I had one of those last month - correct street number, wrong street) until I read the name and address. Correct address, right down to the Zip+4 numbers, but the name was wrong. I have never heard of the woman named on this envelope.

I pressed on the envelope to see if I could read the amount due. It looked like there was a past-due amount (horrors!) so I pulled out my own bill to verify the positions of the various fields. After all, I couldn't really read the other bill clearly through the envelope. By comparing the figures on my own bill to the vague shadowy forms I was able to discern through the envelope, I determined that:

a) there was a past due amount (bad)
b) the current amount due was less than $100 (good, if it were really my bill)
c) the total amount due was considerably more than my real current bill, and
d) the account number started with a different digit than mine did (very good indeed).

What's a boy to do? I didn't want to chance having my power disconnected over an errantly addressed bill, so I found the phone number for the Tallahassee Utility Services Department. The notice with the phone number said that one can call until 5:30 pm. I looked at my watch; 5:31 pm!

I took a chance and called. Menus ... punching my way through menus ... this is taking time ... they'll all have gone home by the time I get through ...

O frabjous day! Somebody answered, and was effusively friendly to boot. I explained the dilemma as succinctly as possible and she asked for the name on the errant bill, last name then first name. "And do you live at ...?" she asked, and recited my address. "That is correct," I said, adding that I had been living at this address for over two years.

She then informed me that the addressee in question was a previous tenant, or perhaps was having her bill sent to an address other than her own for some reason; she said that I could mark the envelope "Return To Sender" and put it back in the mailbox.

Thereupon hangs a tale.

When I first moved in here, I didn't mind the mail that was addressed to other people. After all, they probably just moved out a month or so before I moved in; I saw the "For Rent" sign, stopped in the next day and signed the lease a week later - but didn't move in for nearly a month, as the place was being renovated. But I digress, as is my wont.

At the very beginning I marked the mail "Return To Sender" along with "No Longer At This Address," but within six months I had printed up a couple of sheets (20/sheet) of labels that said "RETURN TO SENDER" and, this time in red, "ADDRESSEE HAS MOVED."

I've gone though three of those sheets and have started a third.

Today, if you include the funky utility bill, there are seven pieces of mail in my mailbox with my "Return To Sender" labels on them. I saved them up for a couple of weeks before I put them out, and now the postman hasn't picked them up for five consecutive days. During that time I've added several new pieces; I believe there were only four when I put them out there. Maybe he doesn't pick them up because I never put the flag up. Oh, yeah - I don't have a flag. Neither does my next-door neighbor. Both of our mailbox flags disappeared the same night. I feel for them, though, especially - they had just moved in a week or two before. I had been here for almost two years at the time of the crime.

Maybe I should get my ass in gear and buy that new mailbox I've been thinking about ever since vandals tore the flag off. Of course, then I'll need a cordless drill, and new reflective numbers (minimum 3" tall per a new City regulation). I'll either have to take the bus to Home Depot, or put the drill in my saddlebag and strap the mailbox on top of the tailrack. Stowing the reflective numbers is really not too much of a concern.

Once in a great while I'll get junk mail addressed to former tenants. I just throw that away, of course. On the other hand, what mail still does come for these mysterious strangers generally appears important. Social Security yearly statements, tax-related info from pensions or investments, Child Support Enforcement, IRS stuff, etc. Once in a while a delinquent bill notice will arrive, for one person in particular. I guess I should call next time I receive that one to explain the situation, just like I did with the utilities. It's a little different when you get an overdue bill from one of those storage places, you know, the ones with all of the garage doors. Not quite as pressing as a utility bill. So, they have your address! Who cares? It's not your name on the bill. What are they gonna do? Ahh, but if it's the utility company ... no hot water ... no microwave ... no computer ... no heat, not since I moved out of that place with all the wood stoves ... GAAA! no tunes! ... and my beer is all warm!

Well, you know what Tom Waits said:

Warm beer and cold women,
Man I just don't fit in,
Every joint I've stumbled into tonight,
That's just how it's been ...

Snap! Back to reality. Sorta. Anyway, most of these pieces of mail are important enough to at least inform the sender that this is no longer a valid address for the intended recipient.

One of these guys actually came to my door one day, during my first year here. Hell of a surprise that was, I tell you what. He was asking if I had received any mail for him; he had a certain item in particular that he was interested in (it was one of the typical important things I mentioned above). I told him what I had been doing, marking the envelope "no longer at this address" (I didn't have my stickers yet). I tried to apologize but he would have none of it. How was I to know, he said. He gave me his new address, just down the street; I told him to hang on a moment whilst I grabbed something to write on and with. (No, I didn't say "whilst" to him. If I recall correctly, I said, "Hang on - lemme git somethin' to write on."

Put his name and address on a Post-It(tm) Note and stuck it on the refrigerator. I continued forwarding his mail for quite some time, but eventually the address he had provided was abandoned. Now I just put the ol' "return to sender" sticker on and send it back.

... changing the subject casually ...
Here's a kick in the pants: my entire immediate family is now officially below the Mason-Dixon Line, at least until Spring when my folks head back North.

Another tidbit: All except my bro, Karl, are below the Watson Line. Another short but ultimately probably uninteresting tale hangs upon the very mention of the Watson Line. One of these days I'll see it. The Watson Line, that is. There are still markers hidden in the woods; a couple of my friends have seen them. Part of the tale, don't ask.

But I did write a stanza of a (disputedly) humerous song, to be sung to the melody of "The Ballad of Jed Clampett:"

Larry Miller tells a story
'bout the Watson Line,
Some old surveyors' marks
from Revolutionary times ...

'Nuff said. Stargate is long over. I'm trying to listen out of one ear to the History Channel. Gotta go!