postal

I know, I know - I disappeared off the face of the earth for a while there. It's been a rough week.

I got sick last Thursday, and spent three full days in bed, as well as another half a day before I had to drag myself up and get back to work. Jon also got sick, but everyone seems to be on the mend, more or less. It seems like everyone in NYC has some kind of stomach flu or cold right now.

The real reason I haven't been up to blogging is something entirely different, though. Remember the blue socks with the lace cuff that I did surgery on? (picture here) And the red Fetching mitts that I finished as a belated holiday gift? And that other pair of gray guysocks that I made for my uncle? Well, with my uncle's birthday approaching (it was the 28th) I got all of those things packed into a box and sent off to Connecticut on the 15th of January. Plenty of time to get there by his birthday and to get my aunt her belated Christmas mitts.

They never arrived.

I waited and waited to hear from them, and finally eleven days after sending the box out, I got a call from my aunt asking what had happened. The upshot? I don't know. I (very very foolishly) didn't put any tracking on them, although even if I had it's doubtful that it would have made a difference. The US Postal Service drops boxes on that particular rural route on top of the mailbox (if the shipping box doesn't fit inside the roadside box). No one drives up to the house or rings a bell or asks for a signature, so my best guess now is that the box with all the handknit gifts either got: a. stolen, b. buried in a snowdrift, or c. lost in transit.

I'm really devastated by this. I had thought maybe I was unreasonably emotional about it, because I got the news when I was still sick in bed last weekend. But the feeling hasn't gone away. Three handknit gifts. Two pairs of handknit socks, one pair of mitts - just gone. No birthday present for my uncle, nothing.

I mailed three packages that day, and the other two arrived with no problem. It was only the one with all my hard work the very special gifts in it that went missing. I think when I stop mourning over this, I'll just pick up some more yarn and, feeling like Sisyphus, knit some more socks for my uncle. But right now I'm still kind of cranky about it and have been doing nothing but spinning for a week.

Sorry for such a negative post, but I didn't feel like I could just blithely go on and blog about other things, and it took me a few days before I could really think about talking about this. I'll try to show some pictures of the latest spinning soon. 

Comments

[Manise]

Oh, Cassie how awful! I'm so sorry for the loss of knits as well as being sick. That a lot of hard work and no birthday present for your uncle. Hopefully it's in a nearby snow bank to be recovered soon. I always track all of my gifts etc... for fear of exactly that.

[Michele from MN]

Your aunt or uncle should be able to call their post office and ask their route driver if he/she remembers putting a package on the mailbox. At least then they will know if they should watch for the box when the thaw starts. We live in a rural area and usually you get the same route driver and they know you, even if you don't know them.

[Leslie]

I'm so sorry - I had this happen to me once with an afghan I had made as a wedding present. The good news is that they did find it once Spring came. A washing and it was good as new. Less helpful though with all those lovely winter items you made though. :-(

[Marcia Cooke]

I had that happen to a lace pattern baby sweater that disappeared between here and Utah....it's infuriating. They tracked it as far as MY post office, then nothing. What I do now is send stuff right from home, with a USPS account online, printing the mailing label on sticky back paper. With insurance, which gets me a tracking number. So far, so good. Sorry for your loss.

[Mizzle]

That's so awful!

I hope they turn up somehow...

[seizuresalad]

Oh no- it might be worth contacting the postal office nearest the area you sent the package to. Sometimes things can stay on a truck, or end up in a warehouse somewhere and if you raise enough of a stink, they get magically "found". It's happened to me.

I bought a whole whack of spinning fibre in September that I did not purchase insurance or tracking on, and it never got to me. Thankfully the seller was very good about it and refunded me, which she didn't have to do. It is infuriating.

[martha in mobile]

I am so sorry! I am (or should be) packing for a plane trip as I write and I almost dread putting my handknits and knitting projects into my checked luggage for that very reason. I hope your gifts show up; barring that, I hope they miraculously somehow end up with someone who needs them and cherishs them (a long shot, I know).

[Carole]

It's heartbreaking to have this happen. A coworker of mine had the same thing happen at Christmas last year. Her aunt sent a package with 2 handknit sweaters for her daughters. UPS said they delivered the package but it wasn't there and they never found it. Such a shame. You have every right to be devastated.

[Lynn in Tucson]

I just hate when that happens. I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it - it gives me a stomach ache just thinking about it. Feh.

[anne]

it might still show up there . . . last summer i mailed a box to a friend in CA with chocolate in it. i knew i was taking a chance with the heat, but our other mail exchanges usually were pretty speedy. well, the box didn't get there, and didn't get there. the post office actually says it can take up to 45 days for priority mail, and we had to wait. well, after giving it up for lost, on day 43 or something, it finally arrived. it was a bit of a mess, but it got there. so you never know.

also, your aunt might ask around the neighborhood . . . a friend sent a box out that the carrier mistakenly delivered to another address on the recipient's road. the meighbor didn't "keep" it per se, but it took them a month to let the real recipient know they had it.

[Jody]

Wow. I think we all mourn the loss of the hand knit gifts with you. While it wasn't my presents that were lost, I am certainly saddened knowing that all the time and love never reached their intended.

[Laura Smith]

Wow, that is something that I always worry about happening. Once the package leaves my hands I am a nervous wreck that it will never show up on the other end. I'm sure it will turn up. My mom ordered a calendar back in 2002 and finally received it a few days ago covered in dust but still perfectly usable....in 2002.

[Sara]

Oh how horrible. In my mind, I always rely on the idea that if it doesn't make it to its destination, it'll at least be returned to me...but clearly that's not realistic.

Stuff we knit is so full of things beyond the yarn - there's a lotta love and connection built into each stitch. I completely understand your grief and mourning.

[Kim]

That sucks. I'd feel horrible too. The USPS seems to be off when it comes to yarny mailings. A friend in New Hampshire mailed se a package priority mail and it never got here!

[Angie]

I don't blame you for feeling devastated. Here's hoping that it arrives eventually...

[Julia]

I'm so sorry. That is terribly upsetting. Try going to your post office and filling out a tracking form anyway, and that might shake it loose. Even if you didn't have a tracking number on it they can do a search. Odd things happen and sometimes addresses on packages get obliterated for one reason or another. If you give them a description of the contents they can identify your package and get it where it needs to go. I had a blog contest prize show up 9 months after it was mailed with the address on the original package completely washed off, but they did get it to me eventually! There is hope!

[JoVE]

Lets hope it is buried in a snow drift and will magically appear in the spring. Soggy but generally okay.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

[Francesca]

Ack, that's awful and I'd be just as upset as you are. I don't know if things are different for domestic mail than for international mail, but I sent a package to Italy early in December and both my mother and I had given up on it when it finally showed up: 44 days later! Another package from Hamburg to LA took also exactly 44 days (some cosmic thing going on?) and one from Lithuania to LA a month. Maybe there is still hope for yours.

[Ruth]

How disheartening! I don't blame you for being so upset. Hopefully it will emerge in spring!

[katy]

I would be devastated--so I don't think you are overreacting. ;) So sorry!

[Tsock Tsarina]

Oh, OUCH. (On top of that flu, no less, which has been making the rounds even here on the island as well.) I felt like *I* had been punched in the gut when I read that, so I can only dimly imagine how it must hurt for you. Not just all your hard work but your unique hard work. I'm thinking of the huge stack of patterns I'm mailing out today - if those got lost in the mail one would be angry and frustrated and out of pocket some, but after the nuisance had passed one could start again knowing the end product would be identical to what was lost. If the box contains your STITCHES, though... that's irreplaceable. Dang, this is not very comforting at all. But it's totally sympathetic, for what that's worth.

Of course, if you do knit and send new ones, the original ones will turn up, and then you'll have a big credit in your gift karma account.

[sue]

Sorry about the package lost. I would feel bad too. It still may turn up. I would be surprised if someone stole it. Knit slowly on the replacement items and keep your hopes up.

[Sylvia]

Oh, waaah! I had a box of beadwork fall off the planet once and it broke my heart. :::hugs::: Will cross my fingers and hope that the box materializes soon.

I caught a chest cold and still haven't gotten my blogging computers HD replaced so will blog eventually. Have lots of photos saved on the camera.

DD loves her school. Teacher meetings are going wonderfully. Life is good. Her art teacher is a quilter!

[Ronni]

I don't blame you one little bit for feeling cranky. I would too. I hope the box turns up soon.

[Beth S.]

Oh, this is awful! I hope it will turn out to be one of those things where the box turns up miraculously six months later, battered-looking but intact...

And I'm so sorry you're sick! My husband is on his way to NYC right now, and I was feeling bummed that things at work are too crazy this week for me to tag along with him and coax you into a yarn crawl... but it sounds like you would have been in no shape for it anyway. :-(