You think I could make this stuff up?

So we've got this woman in Nipawin who forwards our mail to wherever we may be. She picks it up once a week, sends us an email and if we think something might be important she will open it, scan it and email it to us. Otherwise I suppose it accumulates in a box in her kitchen and then after a month or so we send her an address and sometime later our mail arrives.

We knew we were heading to Airdrie and I had actually bought Jim Shepherd's temperature monitor and had him ship it here. So it was logical that we would also have our mail sent here. I gave our address as Bob Evans, c/o Growsafe Systems, etc. Alison had been very concerned that the shipment from RV Systems might not arrive unless it had both my name and Growsafe on the package so I was very explicit in my instructions to that effect.

When we arrived here Alison told us that we would have to go into town to the post office because they refused to leave our package here. Apparently Canada Post or the local carrier or some other busybody inside the post office took it upon themself to decide that I wasn't a "normal" recipient of mail at Growsafe and therefore they wouldn't leave the envelope. So we had this little claim form that we were supposed to take in, with ID, in order to pick up our mail. Bad enough so far but wait - it gets much worse.

Marilyn went in to pick up the mail. Of course she isn't an Evans so she knew that was going to complicate matters but she is so good to me and she knew I would likely stroke out on the spot if they did something stupid, which they immediately did. They wanted me to come in with ID that showed my name and Growsafe's address. Huh? WTF? I would have come unglued at that point but Marilyn stayed focused on the prize and asked them what other alternatives they had in mind.

We ended up with some official looking form that I had to sign that authorized Growsafe to pick up my mail. Then Marilyn and Lorry from Growsafe went in to the post office together, armed with the special form signed by me. That time they finally returned home with our mail. I really didn't think they would succeed and had already decided that I was going to go to the cops and tell them that someone had stolen our mail. And then make it up on the fly depending on where the conversation went. I was almost looking forward to it.