The Saga of Pinkie Peg MHPayneCountry code: blank.gif, country type: blank, valid: No.2482074
I just had to share this story somewhere, and, well, this seemed the best place for it, letting folks know what's gone on since the clock ticked over to 9PM Pacific Daylight Time on Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 with mine still the highest bid for Pinkie Pegasus.
Well, the last auction closed Thursday, April 28th, and a week later, I got an e-mail through Paypal from the seller telling me "Lauren wanted to include a handwritten note to the winners." Now that she had done so, the seller would be putting the packages in the mail the next day.
The following Monday, I learned that the review article I'd written about the new Pony series would be published on the science-fiction website Strange Horizons on Wednesday, and I took that as a sign. Wednesday's my day off work anyway, so it would be perfect: my article would go live, and Pinkie Peg would arrive to help me celebrate getting the word out about Pony to an SF/fantasy audience that would likely enjoy it but probably didn't know about it
So, of course, she didn't arrive on Wednesday.
Thursday, though, while I was at work, my dad heard some knocking at the door. By the time he actually got himself downstairs to answer it, the front porch was empty, but in with the day's mail was a little brown card from the Post Office: "Sorry we missed you!" it said along the top when I read it that evening. The spaces for "parcel" and "registered mail" and "signature required" were checked, and the box that said "your mail can be picked up after" had the date "5/14" and the time "9:00 AM" written in it in pen.
Which was OK with me since I had to work all day Friday anyway.
So Saturday morning with little brown card in hand, I drove up to the city's mane post office--and it was closed. It was Saturday, after all.
Folks were wheeling bins of mail around the sorting facility next door, though, so I showed one of them my little brown card. She said I should go around to the front of the sorting facility, ring the doorbell at the big locked double door, and wait.
So I did, and the guy who opened the top part of the double door was the guy who used to run our little local post office--I mail a lotta stuff, so we'd gotten to know each other over the years. We chatted, I showed him the card, and he said that the parcel would be in the mane building next door, the one that was closed. He couldn't figure out why the mail carrier had written that the parcel would be available for pick-up on a Saturday, but one of the other clerks said she had a load of boxes she was taking over there: she'd be happy to grab my parcel and bring it back with her.
I said thank you and settled in to wait.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back saying the parcel wasn't there: the little brown card had a number on it, and no parcel in the building next door had the same number. So the first guy looked around the sorting facility just in case, then made a photocopy of my little brown card, had me write my phone number on it, and said he'd call if anything turned up. His best guess, though, was that the carrier had hung onto the parcel at the local office so he could try redelivering it.
So I drove home.
As I pulled onto our block, I saw our local carrier just finishing up his route and loading his mail cart into the back of his van. I pulled in behind him, showed him the little brown card, and he said that Thursday was his day off. It had been some substitute carrier who'd left the card. He said he'd look into it, though, and would let me know when he brought our mail around on Monday. I said thank you, and as he drove off, I suddenly realized that he'd taken the little brown card with him.
And yet? I'm not worried. Because this had to happen, absolutely had to. This is Pinkie we're talking about, after all, and the Post Office. Derpy all around!
But the money's gone through to the Japan relief fund--that's the most important thing--and registered mail means the parcel was insured. And it'll give Pinkie the chance to come leaping out of my mailbox Monday yelling "Surprise!" at the top of her lungs...
Mike