Fun with Mail

Post-siege, my mother sent me plenty of nasty-gram snail mail, spewing as much venom as possible (or alternately, occasionally playing the victim card and telling me how "very sad" she was.)  All of this was predictable.

Less predictable was the fact that she began changing up the name she used for me when reaching me by mail.

At first she stopped using my name, Mac_____ (which is also one of her two last names ... she has two identities, depending on which bank accounts or homes she's dealing with.  Having one name would just be way too straightforward.)  This name was also her maiden name; I'd changed my name from my married name to this name upon my divorce as a way of honoring my grandparents.  Further, I simply loved the sound of the name, liked the way it combined with my first name, and ... why not?

Apparently I was no longer good enough to use her ancestral name, so she dropped it.  She wrote to me using my married name from my first marriage (long, German, and something I hadn't utilized in several years.)  Later, she used my maiden name (short, Scottish, and hated with a vengeance by her, due to the fact that it originally belonged to my father) as a way of conveying her disgust.

Amazingly, my letter carrier delivered them all, rather than sending them back.

Another episode of postal hilarity ensued after I stopped paying her bills in 2006, returning all of her paperwork, checks, signature stamp, etc. to the hotel in Cambridge where she'd been staying. I filed two change-of-address forms for her (one for each of her identities), feeling a wave of relief go through me as i dropped them in the mail slot.

Not so fast!

Because one of her identities is "Mac_______" (same as my current last name) and our first names also share the same first three letters, MY mail began to be forwarded to her (in addition to hers.)  The USPS algorithm for change-of-address forms uses the last name and the first three letters of the first name.  In this respect, we were identical (except that she also has a second last name/identity, for which I'd also filled out a COA form...this didn't help me, though!)

My bills piled up at her hotel.  She never contacted me about it.  Who knows whether/how much she rifled through my mail.

Mortified as soon as I realized what had happened, I contacted each of my creditors and changed the address back.  Never a word from her about my missing mail.

Positively chilling ...