Bizarre Coincidence

Last night while I was trying to turn on the Christmas lights, unlock the front door, and wrangle two kids inside, I was going through the day's mail. It was a fairly typical pile of mail... Weekly ads, a Christmas card, other random crap, and then something caught my eye... A notice from the post office saying that this was their final attempt to deliver our certified letter.

HUH? Certified letter? So many thoughts were going through my head as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing... WHO would send us a certified letter? Scan the card some more... Why would someone on our street send us a letter? Scan the card some more... Final attempt? I don't really remember getting any other attempts made at delivering said letter... Scan the card some more... Health department?

Once inside I was able to take a minute to pay attention to this card a bit more and to actually READ each box rather than 'scanning' each box...

*Pause here for a bit of background...*

One of my duties at work is to send quasi threatening letters to people who are 90+ days past due with their bills. I send two copies of the letter, the original is sent certified mail, return receipt requested and a copy is sent via regular mail. When the signed certified mail card is returned, it's stapled to a copy of the letter and retained for our records. If the certified letter is returned as 'UNCLAIMED' but the copy sent via regular mail is not returned, it's fairly safe to assume (I know, I know... "You know what happens when you assume!") that the recipient did indeed receive a copy of the letter.

A month or two ago I was preparing these letters and ran across one that was addressed to someone who lives on my street. I thought it was interesting only because of all possible addresses in this county this person lived on my street, but thought nothing else of it.

*Okay, back to the story...*

I read the card more carefully and the first thing I found out was that it had been put in the wrong mailbox. As I read further, I realized that it had been sent from the Health Department.

And then it hit me... This final notice for a certified letter was for the certified letter that I had sent to this person while at work. I don't know the person and our addresses have only ONE number that is the same, but somehow this card got put into my stack of mail by the sorters at USPS.

Of ALL of the addresses on our street... Of ALL of the places this card could have ended up... Of ALL of the people would COULD have sent certified mail to another human being... It was a letter that I had mailed to someone as part of my job!

I wrote "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS" and put it back in the box... I guess I won't be seeing THAT signed certified mail card!

BIZARRE COINCIDENCE!!!