Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Can't Fight City (or County) Hall

For some reason unknown to any logical person, there are two houses on our "street" with the same address. We learned this right before we moved in here. We tried calling the county and having it changed...but they weren't having any of it.
The reason this is possible is that the city of Marengo calls our "street," which is actually a state highway, by another name in town. So, there is our address, which could be (but isn't) 123 State Highway, and his address, which is 123 Street in Town. Same number, same street.
It causes all kinds of problems for giving directions. "Now, at this intersection, turn right. You are about 4 miles from our address. You will see the number in town, within a mile of where you are, but keep going until you're about 4 miles out of town. Then look for it." About 10% of the time, someone will call and say, "Why aren't you answering your door?" We've had service people be completely confused and head back into the office. I even have a message printed on UPS labels when I order online, if I get the option to make a comment; it says, "We are about 4 miles north of the town of M." We've had friends knock on his door and ask for us. He's very good-natured about it, as was the lady who lived there before him.
This comes up because today two packages were delivered to his house, instead of ours. He called to let us know, but we were out for the afternoon. I headed down there as soon as I got home, but he was out. When I got back here, I found that he had just left, after dropping off the packages! I called to thank him and we had a very nice conversation about his military service, and his gratitude for our sons'. I wondered how he knew our kids were in the military, and then I noticed that the packages were from a company called Special Ops. Now I feel badly. He ran them up here because, "I figured he'd need them right away." What he doesn't know is that Special Ops is ...a paintball company. MAP ordered some paintball equipment "for when I get home," and had it delivered here.
Do you think I should call him back and tell him?

1 comment:

Susan said...

Don't you have a star in your front window? Mightn't that tip off the veteran that you have sons in the military? Or maybe he saw something in the newspaper or that bit on the tv?