Please, Wait A Minute Mr. Postman...

The Postman has halted all my mail! And it is pending a federal investigation. Fun times...

The apartment I live in does not have mailboxes. The post offices on Guam are always full of long lines, open till close, and there isn't any that are all that convenient for me to go to. For this reason, I started using a mailbox store that is in the building I work in, PostNet.

Yesterday, a co-worker of mine who also uses this place asked me what I thought of the federal investigation. I had no idea what he was talking about. It turns out that the store is now under federal investigation and any mail sent there will be automatically returned to sender, no questions asked. Bummer.

I'm frankly not surprised. I've had a hunch something unscrupulous was going down for a while. For instance, one time I tried to buy a single $0.42 stamp. He rang me up at $0.64. I was a bit confused. Also, I only had $0.53 on me. I argued with the guy for a few minutes about the legality of selling postal stamps at such an inflated rate as well as the ethical and karmic aspects of it. He wouldn't relent. I told him what he could do with his $0.64 postal stamp and checked my mail as I left. Once he realized I was a paying mailbox customer he caught me leaving and said that since I was a customer he'd go ahead and "discount" my stamp. And he didn't just charge the regular rate, he charged me the $0.53 I had left. I kept the box, but never mailed a packed out from there again.

Now that this federal investigation is under way, you think they'd at least let us know about is as we are checking our mailboxes in futility. Nope. Not a word. I sat there for a while watching customers go in and out empty handed just thinking that there was no mail that day. The ONLY way to find out is to ask them directly, which will incur a short, almost scripted answer or to read a very nonchalant letter posted on the side of the door through the glass.

If I wasn't loosing my mailbox as a result of this, I'd be happy to see this happen to them. But, as I'm now stuck declaring P.O. Bankruptcy, it's less amusing than it ought to be. At least I still have email...