At least it wasn't my imagination

The tax bill came Saturday; the escrow check had arrived Wednesday. Woo hoo - time to pay the property taxes! (yes, I get excited about the strangest things)

I'm not much for crowds, nor slow clerks. I'm not in a hurry for the small refund I should be getting (escrow check is made out to both me and the city - in order to get a "right sized" check I'd have to go to the bank, which I've done in prior years when the difference is great enough I could feel good about throwing it at the principal on the mortgage). So, I mail the check in.

There is a mail box on the way out of our complex, with a pick up every day except Sunday. It wasn't until I was almost at the exit to the main road this morning that I remembered I needed to drop the taxes in the box (the envelope that was sticking up out of my purse so I wouldn't forget).

Shift to reverse. Back up the boulevard. Back up some more. Double check how far back I was. Look again. After all, it was 5:54 a.m. and pretty dark, even with the streetlights.

The mail box was missing. Gone. No sign of it.

Argh. The post office itself is on the corner near the complex, but the only drive up box I knew of there was one where I would have to drive up, then get out of the car to go around to drop in the letter (I'm spoiled - twenty years of living down the road from a post office with a box on the driver's side because it was on a one-way street).

Did I mention it was zero degrees this morning?

Nothing for it but to go ahead.

As it turns out, two postal workers were unloading that box when I pulled up (facing the wrong way on the street to have the right side toward the box, because, hey, it was really, really early in the morning and really, really cold). I said my box had disappeared, and the postal worker knew immediately which one I meant. Apparently it had gotten "jammed" or broken in some way, and they removed it for repair. It will be returned.

Phew. While I don't send off a lot of mail, I do have just a couple of bills that have to be paid by check (both the sewer and the water bills - the city needs to get themselves into the 21st century and set up on line payment ability).

I'm pretty happy that the box is coming back.