Every morning except Sundays and holidays I check Informed Delivery to see what the USPS has in store for me. As the screen capture shows, as of today I’m working on a streak of four straight days with zero mail pieces scheduled for delivery. Will it reach five tomorrow? I hope so.
I signed up for Informed Delivery years ago. At the time I was expecting some valuable packages in the mail and didn’t want to lose them to theft or my indifference. Informed Delivery sends out a daily email showing scans of the envelopes plus information about any packages to be delivered that day. It’s easy, convenient, and close to 100 percent accurate.
It’s a long walk uphill from my house on Mud Bay to the mailbox. If I get home for the day before the mail has been delivered, I don’t bother to check for it later unless Informed Delivery shows that something useful or with personal information is on the way. Anything else can sit in the mailbox until tomorrow. Since the mail is often slow to arrive, what’s wrong with waiting another day or two?
Actually, Informed Delivery’s best feature might be that it tells you what you aren’t getting.
So why mention a string of shutouts? Let’s face it: most of the mail you get means work on your part: paying bills, deciphering financial statements, sorting out the true junk for recycling. Unless you subscribe to printed magazines or have friends and relatives who are prolific letter writers, there’s not much worth getting. That makes days with zero mail pieces good days.
This time of year I’m mostly at Treasure Island and only check the Rocky Point mailbox a few times a week. Informed Delivery lets me do that with confidence. Otherwise, I would need to ask one of my neighbors to collect my mail even though only a small fraction is important.
In April, in Paying for Ratings I wrote about a letter I got from the Nielsen Company. I can’t remember if I left that letter, which contained an unexpected $5 bill as a gift, in the mailbox for a day or two because it didn’t look important, at least according to Informed Delivery. There hasn’t been anything unexpected and useful since then. Let the goose eggs continue.
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