When I was at home in Ireland a few weeks ago, I accidentally left my necklace behind while I was rushing out the door to get to the airport. We didn’t have time to drive back so I asked my mother to post it over. I didn’t mention that it was an expensive necklace that Gerry had gotten me for my birthday so when I called her to ask her to get the package insured she told me that she had already mailed it in the normal post. Before you think me a giant drama queen for the paranoid measures I have since taken, let me explain my issue with the post and my mother.
2 weeks before St.Patricks Day this year I got a call from my very excited mother telling me that she had sent me a parcel. She was being very enthusiastic and mysterious about the contents and kept hinting but wouldn’t tell me what was in the parcel. For all of 5 minutes. Then the excitement took over and she broke down and told me she had sent me a GIANT tube of smarties and some Irish goodies for paddys day. For the next 2 weeks I checked the post box. All the postboxes for the apartment block are at the entrance to the complex and there are no locks or anything so technically anyone can go through your mail. They never would though.
OR WOULD THEY……
2 weeks came and went and no parcel arrived. Paddys day came and went with no goodies from home. At first I assumed the post was just very slow but as time went on my paranoia began to grow. Maybe the postman ate my smarties…maybe one of neighbours heard the chocolatey jiggle of the smarties and decided to take them for themselves. I began to mistrust my seemingly ‘lovely’ neighbours. No wonder theyr so happy, I thought to myself, they’ve been eating my smarties! And what’s next, where will they stop! Smarties today, maybe bank records and identity theft tomorrow! 
I asked my mother a few times was she sure she had put the correct address on it and she assured me that she had definitely one hundred percent put my proper address on it. She was also outraged that I didn’t receive it. She went and had a chat to the post office in Ireland, I went and spoke to the local post office in Queenstown. No sign of the parcel. Clearly the ridiculously oversized chocolatey goodness of the smarties had tempted someone to do the unthinkable and steal my parcel. My faith in the postage system and neighbourly goodness was thoroughly crushed. 
A few months later the parcel turns up back at my parents house in Ireland with a big Return To Sender sticker on it. It had gotten all the way to Queenstown, however my mother had written my full address and left out the apartment number so it couldn’t be delivered.
However she assures me she put the correct address on this parcel with my necklace in it.
Good morning Mr.Postman, I’m Sarah and I will be ur stalker for the next 2 weeks.