MAIL CALL!!

Hubbz and I are taking off for the states tomorrow. A dear friend is getting married next week, and even though we really didn’t plan to be coming back to the states for visits, we couldn’t imagine missing it! It just so happens that this visit is likely to coincide with the birth of our newest niece or nephew. How cool is that?!

Hubbz came home on Tuesday and mentioned that he had put the mail on hold for the week that we’re going to be gone. I kinda shrugged and smiled – and then he reminded me of just how interesting our mail situation was when we arrived (more on that to come).

Our mail comes to the base in the same manner that mail gets to US Troops in the field. We use an APO (Armed forces Post Office). The mail comes to a post office box (or Community Mail Room) on one of the bases, and financially, it’s just like mailing something to us in the US. This is how it works:

When mail for us leaves the sender, it goes to an APO collection point (ours is in NY). Once received there, it is the responsibility of the US military. And there it waits (…until a full load of mail is collected? …until someone feels like sorting it? …until someone finally determines just how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The urban legends are rampant) ….anyhow, it waits and at some point, it all gets bundled up and put on some sort of government transport headed for Germany where it will be put in our little box (it’s a cute little box with a combination lock which is almost exactly like the ones we used to have on our respective college campuses, back in the day…..). We cannot accept a Fed Ex or UPS package on base (and who would want to pay for THOSE shipping charges!!) – although when we’re settled in the Holy Grail Apartment, we could do so there. And since the mail waits at the clearing station for an unclear and irregular amount of time, it’s a complete waste of money to send something overnight via the USPS. We send and receive most things that are bigger than an envelope via Priority mail. The envelopes go the good old fashioned 44 cent route.

Our Community Mail Room (CMR) is on the base where Hubbalicious works, so sometimes he checks the mail on his way to get lunch. At other times, we meet there when I pick him up from work at the end of the day. By and large, it’s a pretty good system. We can send and receive stuff here in Germany for the same price of mailing an item in the states. We have US post offices on the bases to help us figure out the best way to make the mail get there, and – hey – the advantage of not having to learn the ins and outs of German mail regulations and post office customs is a big plus!

When we were preparing to move to Stuttgart, we contacted our sponsor at Hubbz’s office and asked how we should go about arranging for a CMR address. The guys there were really great and hiked down to the CMR to arrange for a box for us. We were even more impressed with their kindness when we learned that the Base Post Office will only deal with CMR assignations, vacancies and distribution of combo locks between 900-1000 each morning (and will only deal with the service member, not spouses). Yes, the irony is that Hubbz’s colleagues are better credentialed to retrieve my mail than I am…. The 900-1000 thing, although a pain, wouldn’t bother us so much….if they were actually STAFFED from 900-1000 each morning. Hubbz stood in line well past 920 one morning, waiting for someone who “deals with that” to be available to the folks who needed service. Ah the freedoms of Federal employment…

Sorry - I'll refocus here! When we were preparing for the big move, we diligently filled out our forwarding address card with our CMR address. I even updated our Netflix account so we’d have something to watch waiting for us here in the land of German language television! Little did we know – or even expect – that the CMR will return any mail that has been sitting in our box for more than 2 weeks! Once we arrived, we had only a small stack of envelopes and none of them were the wedding invitations or Netflix we were expecting to see. It took a few weeks of items bouncing from here back to Norfolk and points beyond, but we eventually got it all sorted out.

So – in advance of our 7 day trip next week, Hubbz wasn’t about to take any chances! He placed a hold on our CMR so that none of our precious items would be returned while we were away. Of course, we haven’t had anything in our box this week – they took that hold seriously, but neglected to read that the start date was tomorrow. I guess the hold notice is the task to which fast attention and full priority is given…just don’t tell that to the guys waiting in line at 930 for their CMR assignment!!