I also have had nothing but good experiences with my POs. I have kids (and gkids) in Chicago, St. Louis, and several small towns in the midwest and mail lots of notes and packages just because it's cheap and the gkids love getting mail! Nothing has ever been misplaced or taken more than three days from my rural mailbox to the kids' mailboxes. Once I neglected to put both the stamp and a return address on a bill. Two weeks later, I got it back from the PO telling me of my errant ways. They returned it to me because of the address on my check. Amazing! I always use the PO to mail or ship everything. Well, I pay most of our bills through email now, so I guess I'm part of the problem. 43 cents to mail a letter? I can't imagine how they do it. Cracks me up to hear complaints. I'm sure mistakes happen, but, sheesh, 43¢ to mail a letter? The rest of my life should be such a bargain!

Well only my swap partner knows for sure ;-). But rest assured, I have no intention of making the rest of you wait until Saturday either. I'll be sneaking out of the office at 4PM. How annoyed am I going to be if the parcel turns out to be a box of motorcycle parts for my husband? But at least we'll all know together! Nina

I met with the Kinetico rep this evening who also performed some tests on our tap water. He found the pH to be 5.8, the hardness to be 31 grains and checked the iron which I forgot to write down, but it wasn't as bad as before. He told me the possible reason the iron wasn't as bad is because, for the first test the water hadn't been used past the pressure tank (the source) so the acidic water had been sitting in the well accumulating iron from the pipe. He recommended the first & most important thing is to install a neutralizing filter which he recommends we rent for the two years until we switch to city water. Unfortunately that filter will actually add hardness so he wants to use the 2100s softener. Finally, I want to add the K5 drinking water RO filter which will attach to the refrigerator ice maker and have a spigot at the sink. Should we go ahead with this? Any comments will be appreciated.

works at the post office is an oxymoron. Why would you have to drive to the post office to mail a letter? Put it in your mailbox or give it to the postal employee. They can lose it as easily as at the office. I subscribed to an out of town paper a while back and it took an average of 8-10 days to get here. Their excuse? Oh, the NEWSPAPER must not have gotten it to the post office in time! Sure, they waited a week to bring them. Yeah, that's the ticket. Couple weeks ago I was expecting a certified letter. Heard the postal truck and looked outside, postman sitting in his truck in the street. I opened the door to see if there was a notice or anything or if he would come up or even indicate there was anything. Nope. So I went out and stood on the steps. Nothing. So I started toward the street and he took one look at me and took off. Checked the box and sure enough there was the note to come pick it up at the PO. That did it. They're required to DELIVER it and come to the door so I got in my van and chased his lazy butt down. You never saw a postal work, er employee move that fast! But I caught up to him and pulled in front of him and blocked him. Gave me a strange look. Thought I'd see if he'd pull up next to me but no, he sat there. Postal employees have LOTS of time to waste. So I go over to him and he knew what it was about. Didn't even ask. I got it, shook my head and went home. I had a go-around with them before about them not attempting to deliver certified stuff. I sat and watched them drive by more than once. Went to the mailbox and there was the slip claiming they tried to deliver and I had to go pick it up after 3pm. The one time I was going out of town and waiting for it and was livid. Delayed my trip by hours. Talked to a supervisor and asked why they don't deliver it and he just said "they're supposed to..." and then it was "you'll have to talk to the carrier". Of course they woudn't give me their name and number. How would I feel if they closed "my" post office? Probably pop a cork on some champagne. They don't need all the buildings when they're supposed to DELIVER the mail. And if it results in them losing their jobs? Wouldn't bother me in the least. Let them try to get a real job. Like they could. Ha! Let's see it's only Tuesday. It's supposed to arrive on Saturday or occasionally Friday, but I don't get it until the following week. I won't have my (last) Saturday's flyers until probably tomorrow. But maybe they'll surprise me and get it to me "early", like today. It could happen. The ironic part is my dad used to just go crazy over the poor service from the post office. He too subscribed to an out of town paper, plus waited for checks, etc and we used to chuckle about it but boy do I understand appreciate and share his feelings now! I wonder if the car manufacturers modeled themselves after the post office?