If a person mails a box to the wrong address (I did) and the people at that address don’t return it to the post office or leave it out for the mailman, that is a shame. It’s also illegal, but the world doesn’t seem to care.
I get mail in my mailbox from time to time that has a real postage stamp on it and isn’t mine. If that happens, I write on the envelope, “moved” or “not at this address” or “return to sender” and then put it out to be picked up by the postal person. That’s what the red flag on the mailbox is for. You put it up if you want the postal person to take your outgoing mail.
I found someone’s mail in the street once, after burglars took the good mail and left the junk mail in the road. I called the police and they came and got it. Maybe some people would just leave it in the street or throw it away. But the people need to know that their mail was stolen so they can get a locking mailbox like most of us in the neighborhood have had to do.
Once I was at the post office and for some reason, put my expired AAA card in my pocket. When I pulled out my car keys, the Triple A card fell into the parking lot. The woman who found it went online, found me on Facebook and private messaged me to tell me she had my card. I messaged her back, thanked her, and told he she could throw it away. He name was Suzy somebody.
Another time I went on an open studio tour, bought a bunch of pottery from a woman in her driveway and she ran my credit card and forgot to hand it to me. I left it behind. She went online, found my blog site, located my email address and emailed me.
This is the world I grew up in. People looked out for one another if they found a credit card or somebody’s mail in the road.
My millennial relative argued that no one has time to do that, and that it’s okay to throw it away. I disagree, oh, so much. How long does it take to write on an envelope, stick it in your mailbox, and flip up the red flag? You never know what might be in that card. Maybe it’s from your great grandma and there’s a two-dollar bill inside. Maybe it’s a box of hand me downs that would only be appreciated by someone with a size 2T toddler.
I’ve received lots of 4th class junk mail addressed to others, and it will not be reprocessed, so that mail can definitely get thrown out. But priority mail, media mail (books) or anything with a real stamp on it is active mail until it reaches the addressee.
So don’t throw it out. Do the right thing and give it back to the postal worker or drop it in a blue mail box on the street corner. It wasn’t addressed to you. It’s not yours to throw away.
Let’s hang on to common courtesy as long as we can. It’s the glue that keeps a society civilized.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 