I'm lucky the FBI didn't show up at my door

Several weeks ago my oldest stepdaughter,TomGirl, left her prescription antibiotics at our house. In a panic , she called hubby asking if he could bring the needed pills to her. As my stepdaughters live nearly 1.5 hours away hubby was understandably not eager to head back out late on a Sunday night. "Will it be ok if I just mail them ?" I heard him asking. "Great, I'll send them out first thing Monday morning" he said and with a quick " I love you" he hung up.

That next morning he mailed the pills and assumed they'd been received until he got a call from the girls mother three days later saying they'd still not received them.
That's odd I thought when hubby mentioned it to me , typically mail only takes a day to get there. I can't imagine why they haven't gotten it yet.

Since the package hadn't been sent prority or overnight there really wasn't any way to check its status. We suggested their mom call the doctor, explain the situation and request a refill. She agreed it was probably the only thing to do at this point and so we hung up and didn't think any more about it.

That is until several days later when I was checking our phone messages and had not one but two messages from an investigator from the Seattle USPS.

"Yes, this is Mr. Jones from the investigative division of the Seattle Post Office and we have a item with the last name WM and your return address and it's leaking a white powdery substance. Please call us back immediately" the message said.
The second one was much like the first except it began "I'm calling again as I haven't heard back". In my defense, it had been a busy week and frankly sometimes I forget to check my home voicemail each night. BUT as soon as I heard the messages I immediately called Mr. Jones back.

He explained in a rather serious tone that they had an envelope leaking a white powder sent from our address. Mildly panicked I explained the situation about TomGirl leaving her medicine and hubby mailing it.

"Um, are we not supposed to mail medication?" I asked innocently.

"No ,it's not that" he explained "we just didn't know what the substance was. We only knew we had an envelope leaking white powder and with the threat of anthrax that's cause for panic around here."

I let out a sigh.

"You really should have packaged these in a small box or padded mailer because we run all standard size envelopes through a machine which caused the pills to burst and leak the powder." he finished.

Extremely apologetic, I explained why we hadn't called back immediately and tried to assure him as best as I could that it was just a prescription antiobotic and nothing more. He was relatively understanding but made sure to reiterate how to properly package these types of things. I thanked him and hung up.

A standard envelope ? Are you for real hubs ?

As soon as hubs walked in the door that evening I told him the mystery had been solved. I relayed the whole ordeal making sure to get a few digs in about his less then stellar packaging skills .

"We're lucky the FBI didn't come knock down our door". I exclaimed, my heart racing

"Yeah" hubby added assuming I was joking "They probably thought we were terrorists... or trafficking drugs"

As I envisioned the cops busting down our door trying to take us away for ...prescription meds, well I realized how damn funny the whole thing really was and laughed not just at the situation but at myself .

I swear sometimes if I weren't actually living it, I wouldn't believe half the things that happen in my life!


Now then, I'm off to enjoy the weekend (which just happens to be 3 days for yours truly,WOOT!). Do enjoy yours!

Smooches,
WM