The Mystery of the Missing Mail

Dateline June 1975: The post office in Rutland, Vermont, having received numerous complaints about mail not being delivered, investigated.

Through “patient observation,” postal employees eventually discovered the cause to be a trash basket recently donated to the city by the local Kiwanis Club and thoughtfully placed outside the post office (presumably for junk mail “deposits”).

People were mistaking the trash basket for a mail box and depositing their letters into it. Although one resident noted, “I can’t understand it. It doesn’t even look like a mail box, except it’s blue.” Go figure…