Last week, on Tuesday,January 16th, I made a pathetic sale on eBay.

I sold an Irish, hand made, blue cable knit sweater for $39.00. With $28 shipping and then eBay fees taken out, I think I made eighty-six cents.

A Boone, NC man was the winning bidder. I got his payment immediately.

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I had promised free shipping, so I created a pre-paid label through eBay. I boxed up the sweater, printed the address and secured it on top of the box which was wrapped in layers of packing tape.

At Noon, on Wednesday, January 17th, I drove down to the Sherman Oaks Post Office on Magnolia and Kester, walked into the facility, and in the room where the clerks and customers transact business, under the guard of many security cameras, I deposited my shipment into the bin with all the other boxes of prepaid shipments.

Normally, a text would arrive from USPS, usually by evening, saying that the item was “received” then “in transit” and I would get daily updates until “delivery.”

I had no texts on Tuesday. Or any texts after I dropped off my prepaid shipment at the Sherman Oaks P.O.

I went back to the P.O the next morning. A lethargic woman ushered me to her station. “Huh?” she greeted me.

I told her what happened, showed her the tracking number, and she replied, “Huh?”

A clerk next to her asked me to write down the tracking number I was showing the other clerk on my phone. “It says here your package is ready for shipment,” the second clerk said.

“Yes, I know that. I dropped it off yesterday, pre-paid and I wonder if it is somehow lost or in back and if someone can check for it,” I said.

The lethargic one went in back, spoke to another clerk and came out to speak to me. “They in a meeting. If you put your name and number on here someone call you back when they out of it,” she said.

There was nothing I could do. The package had mysteriously disappeared.

24 hours later, two days after I shipped the package, I got a call from someone at USPS. “Yeah, you, uh, called for something? he said.

“Have you found my package?” I asked.

“Uh, it’s in Van Nuys,” he said.

“You mean it was shipped from Sherman Oaks to Van Nuys?” I asked.

“No. It’s ready for shipment with your prepaid label,” he said, reading off his computer, not knowing anything.

After that I thought my package had been stolen. Maybe someone else walked into the dank post office and swiped it under the glare of the cameras, or maybe a clerk in back has a nice, new, hand knit Irish sweater.

I apologized to my buyer and refunded his money.

Then on Monday, January 22nd, six days after I dropped the package off at the post office, four days after I refunded the entire amount to the buyer, a text message appeared on my phone:

USPS DELIVERED to MAILBOX in BOONE, NC.

The eBay buyer in NC now has a free sweater.