This is one of those posts that has little to do with zines. So if you’d rather not read about my strange shenanigans, you know what to do.

Well! What a way to start the week. No happy mail, even with a Monday stop to the post office. Well, none if you don’t count a Spotlight catalogue trying to get me to spend money that I shouldn’t spend. They did, however, include a small origami project which was nearly impossible to do because they kept referring to dotted lines that didn’t exist. I did manage to make the “koala” (heavy on the quote marks). Zine Ninja wasn’t impressed.

So. Mystery mail.

I already knew I was going to be up early today thanks to the roadworks notice slipped in our street mailbox last Friday. What I didn’t expect (besides the disgusting smell of whatever they were spreading on the road) was a knock on the door from our postie. (He always talks as if I’ve been awake for hours already when I always come to the door in my PJs. Adorable.)

Having experienced mail theft, I only direct mail to our street address if I absolutely have to, so I know when something is on its way. You can imagine my surprise at being delivered the small, light package. You can imagine my greater surprise when I took this fella out:

I stared at it for a good long while, trying to jog my pre-coffee brain into some sort of recognition. Nada. I put him aside, checked the name and the address (which were mine) and then began to – half-asleep – go through my Facebook groups trying to find the person whose address was written in big, orange letters on the front.

Nada.

After I woke up a bit more, I found a third address on the box. Someone I didn’t know, but this person lived maybe twenty minutes away. Taking a close look (tiny type) at the postage sticker, I saw that it must have come from that person because their local post office was on the sticker. Light bulb. I checked my address again and saw that it was actually an old box from May of last year from VistaPrint. I’d ordered some book cover postcards for my book launch.

This person, whoever they are, had found/taken/rummaged through the recycles for the box and used it to send the bird.

Disappointing, as I was beginning to like him.

This person had also forgotten to cross out my address before sending it off, which is why it came to me instead of going to where it should have gone: Queensland. (Bit of a bloody difference!)

Wanderer took the bird back to the original sender. She was very grateful to get it back but incredibly puzzled because she’d sent it out weeks ago. It was a fairly mundane end to the mystery (the mystery of where she got the box lives on – she couldn’t remember), but I’m glad she’s happy.