snail-mail struggles

Receiving mail in my flat has always been an adventure. The mailman mysteriously has a keycard to the complex, so I do get mail delivered directly to my door, but sometimes it goes into the black hole known as the mailbox on the front gate (to which I don't have a key), or sometimes it just goes somewhere else in St Andrews entirely (usually when the mailman doesn't happen to his keycard).

So mostly, I don't get mail-- or if I do, it can fit through the mail slot. But today, it all came to a head: First, my National Insurance Number application (pretty freaking important. I have a job waiting for me, but they won't let me work until I've got this) was delivered to a different flat in my complex. This was mostly incompetence on the part of the NINo Office, but it resulted in me spending my week 1) borrowing a key from a neighbor all week to check the Black Hole Gate-Mailbox, 2) requesting my own mailbox key (to no avail), 3) getting my landlord to ask around the complex for my mail. Eventually he did show up with my letter, thank goodness, but I'm wondering if I would ever have seen it had I not called in reinforcements!

I was also waiting for an Anglo Saxon Dictionary ('Cause I'm a huge nerd!) and I know that occasionally things get delivered to weird places when they don't fit through the mail slot. For instance, I had to chase down the UPS truck to get a parcel at the beginning of the year. Like, literally trotted up to the truck and knocked on the door, and got handed my mail. Also, I've had workmen in the complex occasionally inform me that the postman came and went, and was going to leave my parcel at the shop next door. On another occasion, my parcels were being held at the post office on the edge of town (instead of the one down the road?). Like I said, mail likes to go somewhere else entirely.

Anyway, I figured that it would be pretty wise to stop next door on my way home before they closed, so I went in, inquired about my parcel (actually, I said "Hi, I live next door, and I'm waiting on--" And the salesgirl filled in the rest and went searching for it) They said the man had come and gone, but that they didn't have my parcel.

Odd. I decided to go home and re-group before launching a town-wide search for my lost mail. You know, just the usual.

So imagine my surprise when I found it laying on the floor below my mail slot.

Royal Mail, UPS, and St Andrews Student Accommodation Services: Thanks for keepin' me on my feet. You truly add spice to my life.