Having delivered the last of this season’s letters to Santa, the United States Postal Service marches into bad winter determined to ferry bundles of wishlists from the wide-eyed children of the College Avenue Student Loan Company, who really really wanted a couple to pay their bill this quarter. The company addressed 55,000 identical statements to the Cain household in Twinsburg, Ohio regarding their daughter’s college tuition. Cleveland-based CBS affiliate WOIO estimates that the delivery could have set the company back at minimum $US9,000 ($13,365) at a bulk rate (and probably 600 boxes of jumbo crayons), but a wish is a wish, and the Postal Service doesn’t ask questions.
“It was a lot for one person, but if we get it, we deliver it,” communications specialist Naddia Dhalai told Gizmodo over the phone.
As WOIO first reported and the Northern Ohio District Post Office confirmed to Gizmodo, nobody at the postal service raised an eyebrow when picking up 79 trays of mail from the College Avenue Student Loans Company in Carol Stream, IL. Nor did anyone say shit when those bins arrived in Twinsburg. Did you know the USPS delivers 187.8 million pieces of mail daily? No! Because you didn’t have to stop and think about it, because the postal service goes about its business trudging through February with your Best Buy coupons after having been wounded in a car accident. And then they’ll apologise for bleeding. That is the mail person’s way.
“The 55,000 letters that were delivered to the customer in Twinsburg, Ohio is not something we see often,” the Postal Service said in a statement, nobly. “However, the Postal Service is committed to providing the best customer service so every piece of mail we receive will be delivered to our customers.”
Was it a waste of the mail carriers’ time? That depends on whether you believe that every child deserves to have their request for an orangutan delivered to the North Pole. I do. The USPS does.
Incidentally, WOIO reports that all of the 55,000 statements from the College Avenue Student Loan Company were incorrect and a new statement will have to be issued.
Recipient Dan Cain told the station that he may burn the letters.