If at first you don’t succeed…

About a week ago, a letter showed up in the mail; the address was correct, but the recipient’s name was unknown to everyone living here. Hey, it happens. Since it looked like something fairly official, from a cartooney’s office, we decided to return it to the sender, rather than put it in the circular file. I felt I could leave this simple task in the hands of my roommate, who promised to take care of it, and that was the last I thought about it… until yesterday.

You see, we got the letter back in the mail. For, as I would discover, the second time. My roommate wrote “unknown person - return to addressee” on the front, and dropped it off at the post office on the way to work. Yes, you and I see the problem there, but we’re made of sterner stuff, I guess. Anyway, as you’d expect, the post office redelivered the letter a day or two later, and the roommate, confused and not seeing the flaw in the cunning plan, took a black marker and underlined “addressee” several times… then took it back to the post office the next day. I wasn’t aware it had already come back once when, following the emphatic instructions on the front… they delivered it to us for a third time yesterday, and didn’t immediately understand why the roommate was so upset. I pointed out the mistake - “I do not think that word means what you think it means” - and at first didn’t get why the roommate was laughing so hard.

It’s amazing to me how often people do this sort of thing - giving completely incorrect directions, and then getting upset when others follow them perfectly. There’s an ancient truth in the publishing industry, to the effect that people never really pay attention to things written all in caps. In much the same vein, people are disinclined to find fault in their own handiwork, and would rather blame others. Usually it’s just another annoying quirk of human nature, but every once in a great while, it can lead to something funny, like the thrice-delivered-letter.

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