“Uncle Sam’s horses have evidently been lamed a lot recently, and now their riders can’t read too well either.”
Likewise, it’s a wonder tax refunds ever arrive, but interestingly there’s never an issue with past due notices.
A large brown envelope with correct address and canceled postage slip was mailed from Stilwell, Kansas, March 11. It arrived at the ranch 25 days later on April 5th.
That’s poor service in everybody’s book. Used to be mail from all the way across the country would arrive at the ranch in a couple days. It’s been sometime since that was the case.
A century ago, blame was sometimes placed on the horses, nowadays there’s every other excuse imaginable. Late mail is a common story repeated whatever barbershop, grocery store line, or elevator one stops at.
This time was even much more disturbing. The envelope had already been opened and two short pieces of loose Scotch tape did not seal it back shut. That’s mail tampering, deception or some unlawful action, isn’t it?
Inside the envelope was a collectible country music song book from a friend and a Xeroxed Internal Revenue Service note. No, it wasn’t a past due tax notice and definitely not a tax refund.
Rather the three-inch-by-eight-inch paper was inscribed “Misdirected Mail Opened by the IRS.” To have a preprinted piece like that, evidently, they open lots of mail that’s not theirs.
That would make many people’s blood boil with remaining commentary on the paper likely heating certain tempers even hotter.
It said: “The enclosed correspondence was misdirected to us by the Post Office.” That’s just not logical in any sense of the definition, because the address was legibly correct.
The return address was also very readable. So, if for some reason the big envelope had been undeliverable it should have been returned to the sender, right?
Excuse given on the IRS note: “The large volume of mail we receive daily is first opened by machine. Therefore, your ‘enclosed’ envelope was opened before we discovered that it was not addressed to the Internal Revenue Service.” The note was inside the original envelope not attached outside.
Suspicion is increasing about both the United States Postal Service and the Internal Revenue Service.
Reminded of Acts 14:2: “They sowed mistrust and suspicion in the minds of the people.”
+++ALLELUIA+++
XVI–16–4-17-2022