Medicine Levi Johnson and his wife, Jordynne Miller, ordered for their 4-month-old baby had been marked delivered in the U.S. Postal Service’s app.
But their mailbox was still empty.
That prompted a bit of detective work by the Burns couple, which led them to find something else — four baskets of other people’s mail left sitting beside their neighborhood’s mailboxes.
Cowboy State Daily reached out to the U.S. Postal Service’s spokesman as well as the Burns Post Office to ask about the incident. Neither responded by publication.
Four Baskets Beside The Road
Johnson told Cowboy State Daily the couple first went to the post office to speak with the postmaster about the missing medication.
The postmaster pulled up tracking information and used Google Maps to check coordinates associated with the delivery.
“It wasn’t anywhere near our house, and he even said that it wasn’t anywhere near our house,” Johnson said.
The postmaster told Johnson he would contact the carrier to retrieve the misdelivered items and get them to the correct box as soon as possible.
He also promised to call Johnson back. Johnson said it never came.
Johnson checked the mailbox twice more that day. On the second trip, at about 7 p.m., he found the medication inside the family’s mailbox, as well as some of the other delayed items.
He also spotted four post office baskets sitting beside the mailboxes.
They were full of packages and mail.
“I’m not going to leave these baskets in the road for somebody to just come and take,’” he remembered thinking.
He loaded them into his pickup and took them home.
A Late-Night Message
Jordynne posted the discovery to a Burns Facebook group to let people know that if anyone is missing some mail the couple might have it.
Jordynne received multiple texts and Facebook messages from people asking if their packages were in the baskets, because they’d been missing some items for weeks.
She also received a text from someone identifying herself as the carrier responsible for leaving the baskets.
“Hey, that was my dumb ass that did that,” the text said. “My postmaster sent me this (Facebook post). Can I come pick up those baskets tonight?”
Given that it was about 10:30 p.m., the couple told the postal worker they would take the crates to the post office in the morning.
Johnson wanted to make sure the postmaster knew what happened.
He returned the baskets the next morning.
The couple also contacted the recipients of two Amazon packages found in the baskets, Johnson said. One man picked up his package after work. The other recipient was out of town and planned to collect hers once she returned.
Left Behind While Reorganizing
Johnson said the carrier told the couple she had been reorganizing mail in her car, set the baskets on the ground and forgot about them.
“And I get it,” he said. “People get overworked and they get tired, but there was no apology.”
When Johnson brought the baskets to the post office, he said the postmaster put his face in his hands and sighed.
For Johnson, the discovery raised concerns about what could happen to financial documents or other sensitive items left unattended.
“What if there were checks that were left out there?” he said. “You know, there’s sensitive stuff in the mail that you can’t just leave out like that.”
Still Waiting For Some Mail
Although Johnson’s family has received the medication and some other missing items, the family is still waiting for regular paper mail, including bank debit cards.
“We still haven’t found any of that stuff,” Johnson said.
The experience has left him questioning what training carriers receive.
“I don’t wish anybody to lose their job, either,” Johnson said. “But you can’t just leave people’s mail on the side of the road.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
