Wilson and the USPS

Here's the next installment of The Wilson Files.

This is all second hand, from "Wilson" himself, so it may have been embellished. He was keeping me informed almost hour-by-hour during the events, rather than dropping by my fire to tell me the story after it was all over, so I suspect it's close to the truth. (Although a later incident did show he could lie-- even if he soon came clean due to guilt. More about that another time, maybe.)

He wasn't getting some things in the mail he was expecting. Like the catalog he had requested from a freeze-dried survival food outfit in Utah. In fact, he wasn't getting any mail at all. He wouldn't use the internet, so catalogs in the mail were very important to him. Then his mom said she'd sent him something, but he never got that, either. He was getting pretty upset, and I didn't blame him.

We didn't get home delivery, but had multi-box units along the highway. (The picture above, courtesy Google Street View, is the actual bank of mailboxes in the story.) He saw the mail carrier stuffing mail in the boxes and stopped to ask her about his missing mail. I wasn't there, so I really don't know what was said, or how he said it. He could be a little intense. He suspected she was stealing his mail, and he probably said as much.

Then when he didn't get a satisfactory answer from the carrier, if I remember correctly, he went to the post office in town and complained about his missing mail.

A couple of hours later a pair of cops or deputies (he didn't live in town, but town cops often left town to spread their "service") came to his house to talk to him. His door was slightly ajar, so the cops just pushed it a little more and stuck their heads in the house while calling his name. Of course, their guns were unholstered "just in case". Wilson was familiar to them.

Wilson could be a little twitchy, and always open carried. This could have gone really badly, but he saw the cops before they saw him, and carefully placed his gun out of sight, but where he could grab it. (I was treated to a dramatic re-enactment at the scene later that day.)

They said the mail carrier claimed he had threatened her. He said he was just asking where his mail was going. The cops said threatening a postal employee was a federal crime. He said he made no threats, he just wanted his missing mail.

The cops told him to watch what he said to the carrier, and that it would be best if he didn't speak to her again or approach her while she put mail in the boxes.

Everyone survived the encounter, and Wilson wasn't arrested.

Funny thing was, the next day he started getting mail.

I can't remember if he ever got the item his mom had sent, or the catalog of survival foods. But that seemed to be the end of his missing mail problem.

To Wilson (and to me) this seemed to confirm his suspicions that the carrier was responsible for his missing mail. You aren't paranoid if they really are out to get you.

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Reminder: I could really use some help.

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