Mystery of the Missing Mail

Two weeks ago I mailed two cards: one was a "thinking of you" card to a very good friend, and the other was a "happy-you're-almost-married" card. The cards have not arrived. The almost-married friend is married, the thought-of friend has been thought about many more times in the interim, and I am not a happy card-sender.

Yesterday I decided to investigate what happened to my cards. I mailed them from the mail chute in my office building (and if anyone reading this is saying "ah ha!" well then they shoulda warned me beforehand). So my first stop was the front desk of my building, where I asked the security guard if the mail chutes are functional. He said he thought so.

Then I asked my friend who had also mailed letters down the mail chute at the same time, whether her letters had arrived. They hadn't. We then tracked down a mailman who was picking up mail in our building. When we told him we had used the mail chute, he looked at us like we were crazy and told us that the mail chute had been closed for years. Oh.

We then proceeded to lift the ceiling panels where the mail chute used to end but didn't find our letters. The second floor has no mail chute at all anymore. On the third floor we found a mail chute ... and our mail. The only problem was that our mail was fifteen feet below us resting on a ceiling that had been closed off with dry wall and cement when the building had been renovated and was totally inaccessible.

So, let's just say that one maintenance man, three building enginners, the building manager, tons of duct tape, and countless yards of ribbon and rope later our mail is still somewhere between the first and second floors of my building, completely inaccessible - along with lots of other mail belonging to people who didn't realize that the mail chutes were closed after the notice that was taped onto our mail chute fell off eight months ago.

Rest in peace o' missing mail.