On Saturday Sept. 7, I went to the Edgartown Post Office as I do almost daily. Inside my box was a yellow slip indicating I had a package or mail that needed to be picked up at the window. When the clerk returned, she was carrying a four-inch-long two-day priority mail package, three other packages and an oversized envelope that I recognized as a wedding invitation. I was surprised to see so many packages all at once, and was even more surprised to see they were all dated July 13-July 15 of this year! Almost two months after they were mailed.

I called for the post master to get an explanation for this, and he eventually (they asked him three times to come see me) opened his door and met me at the window. He told me his name was Tom Rome.

He said, “I don’t know what happened or why you’re getting all these today,” and shrugged his shoulders. I responded: “It’s your business to know what happened and why all these packages were sitting her for two months . . . you’re in charge!” He said, “If you have any complaints you can send a letter,” and he started to turn back to his office. I said in a loud voice (with several customers clapping and cheering me on): “Your incompetency is well documented by others and I’m just the most recent. You have no idea what goes under your command and shouldn’t be here.”

As I made it to my car with all these packages, the man who had been standing behind me exited and said: “For the second week in a row, they told me they haven’t received my prescriptions which are supposed to arrive each week.” I asked him to go back in and complain too, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said: “It won’t do any good. I’ve tried before.”

The next day, Sept. 8, I filed a formal complaint with the USPS.

Jane Chittick

Edgartown