Mrs. HM's Work Is Never Done (Also A Mail Tale)

Farmer H is in the process of getting himself licensed. I won't reveal his area of interest, but you can use your imagination. Of course Farmer H's licensing requires the unpaid efforts of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. C'mon! How could you think it wouldn't?

Last month, Farmer H decreed that I fill out his paperwork said: "I'm sure there's forms on the internet. Maybe you could look that up for me." Of course I also had to print them. And fill them out. Farmer H is not known for his penmanship. We still get mail addressed to a nonexistent person because of the way he makes his N look like a W.

Anyhoo... I do my best work late at night. Heh, heh! If I do ANYTHING, I do it late at night. So I took those printed-out forms (12 PAGES) upstairs and put the on the bathroom sink under Farmer H's glasses so he would see them before he left for town. Later that evening, he declared,

"Oh. I talked to the guy from the agency, and he GAVE ME a set of papers."

"Are they the same? Did you compare?"

"I imagine they're the same. But since he give 'em to me, they're the ones to use."

So we filled them out. By WE, I mean ME. It's a very involved process. It took an hour for the general information. Lots of boxes to check, or not. I had to read each one to Farmer H to get his answer. Then we had to mark a couple of sections to come back to, once Farmer H got the necessary information. Oh, and he had to take a set of copies to two law enforcement agencies. And get a 2" x 2" picture of himself, with pertinent information written on the back. Do you know how much room there is to write on a 2" x 2" picture?

The forms had the address where to send the packet, with the fee. I gave Farmer H a big manila envelope, and addressed it with my very neat handwriting. He took it to the post office and paid for mailing. This was on March 29th.

Farmer H has been chomping at the bit over his potential license. I have checked the bank's automated line to see if the check has cleared. It has not.

Thursday, I found a manila envelope in EmBee. It had five or six stickers covering the original address, the top one saying RETURN TO SENDER. UNDELIVERABLE. WRONG LOCKER/BOX NUMBER.

Huh. That explains why Farmer H hasn't heard anything about his potential license.

"We can't even see where I sent it! All those stickers are on top! It won't do any good to send it back to the same place, to be returned again in four weeks."

"I can't believe that! I know you put the address it said in the instructions. I'm gonna call that guy. I have his card."

In the meantime, Farmer H pried all the labels off, and saw that the packet had been mailed to Georgia, as instructed.

"My guy says it's supposed to go to Washington. Or maybe Oregon. I told him the papers he give me said Georgia. He gave me a guy in the city to call. I left five messages, and nobody returned my call. So I called my guy back. He said maybe he had the old papers. To look online for the latest version."

"Oh. Like the set of papers I gave you in the beginning, that you said not to use, because the ones your guy gave you were the right ones?"

"Yeah. I guess those."

"What did you do with them?"

"I don't know..."

So I printed out another set. Updated October 2020. Where the instructions give an Oregon address. Now I have to copy 12 pages of information onto the new forms, note where Farmer H needs to sign, and make sure to attach that check and the photos to it. I hope the time limit on the RECENT photo hasn't expired by the time Farmer H's paperwork is processed.

One of these days, Farmer H might listen to me the first time. But probably not. It's only an extra two signatures, and a stop by the post office for him.