Letter Mailed From Tennessee to Tennessee Address But Delivered to Haughton, Louisiana

I first want to make it clear that I'm not picking on the United States Postal Service.  My dad, step mother, sister, an aunt and uncle and 2 cousins all either worked there or have retired from the Post Office so I certainly don't benefit from putting down these hard working people.

But, some lady in Tennessee is probably a little upset with her cross town friend this morning, because she didn't include her when she sent out this year's Christmas cards, or completely forgot her on her birthday.

When I opened my mail box in Haughton this past Thursday, I discovered the card above and had to wonder just how the postal system had allowed such an error to go un-noticed by so many, that a letter addressed from Sevierville, Tennessee to another Sevierville, Tennessee address could wind up at my house in Haughton, Louisiana.

The only similarity that the intended address and my address have in common was the street number, 2245.  If you look at the intended address, the sender obviously didn't complete the zip code, leaving it as 378, without the final two digits, but you have to wonder how this simple mistake could not only send this letter completely out of the state of Tennessee, but actually send it to a zip code of 71037.

Knowing a little about the actual mail handling process, I know that the first machine that read this error should have kicked the letter out and forced it's manual handling from that point.  If that happened, a mail handler had to completely overlook the fact that though the last two digits of the zip code were missing, a simple conclusion could be drawn that if the letter was mailed from Sevierville with a zip code of 37862 to Sevierville, then the intended zip code should logically be 37862.

But, that's not how it went down.  In fact, when the letter arrived at the Haughton post office, someone there had to case this parcel and decide that 2245 Allenridge Drive in Sevierville, Tennessee should be delivered to my house.

Makes you wonder if the old cliche', "Close enough for government work" might have a little merit.