Response: And that's the issue I've been having with my post office for over a year. I almost never can get there until after they are closed, so my swaps go into the mail slot on the right day, but quite often, they are postmarked long after they are sent. I've been trying to use the mail service at the university where I work instead of the city post office, but during the summer, services there are lightweight. My only other alternative would be to send it all priority, and financially that's just not going to happen. So, once again, I've sent something out on time, but because of my post office, it's marked incorrectly and far later than it should have been. I'm sorry for all of this. And I received your note - my mom's issue was a (hopefully) one-off issue, not like my dad last year. My mom is in reasonably good health, but had an emergency a few weeks ago. She is fine again for now. The issue isn't with my swaps - pretty much there is never a problem, and if there is (i.e., it's going to be late going out), I always notify my swap partners, as well as the swap coordinator (which, by the way, I have yet to find any message from the Hufflepuff ATC coordinator about this) - in this case, I didn't do that, because from my point of view, it was not late. The issue currently and always is that I don't have internet at home. This has nothing to do with whether my swaps are done or not. It just means I don't always respond right away. And since my work computer is almost always on, whether I'm here or not, it may seem that I'm online when I'm not. I'm, again, sorry that I didn't respond in the allotted three days to your message, but I only had internet about 2 hours during those 3 days. I'm glad you like the card and extras, I'm glad you did rate me, but I'm sorry this situation has hit again. You have to go back to last year to find any ratings that are not 5 or 5 with heart, so I really thought the P.O. had finally fixed the problem, but I guess not, and I'm sorry.

Response: Hi Marsha, I'm so sorry. I've been completely offline since December 21 - this is my first day back. This is really getting ridiculous, and you should definitely have had it by now. I'm making another and sending it in the next couple of days - hope I can do the first one justice. I'll be sending it out from the post office in the next town, with tracking. I wish they'd do something about our post office here - big town, horrid post office!

Response: I was hoping for higher, since, after it went missing, I re-made the swap for you, but I understand. Thank you.

Response: Thank you for the re-rate - wish it could have been harder, but I don't plead my case any more. I did drop it in the outside box at the post office late in the evening on July 18. This is at least the14th or 15th time this has happened with my local post office in the last 6 months or so, and of those, three of them rated a 3. I totally understand, but I just wish it was more in my control. Unfortunately, if it happens much more, I guess I'll have to limit my swaps because I'll only be able to send things priority - they're the only ones I can count on getting there in a timely fashion, but priority is too expensive to use for every swap. Thanks again.

Response: I sent you a PM explaining - so sorry you are just now getting this and that my campus mail services didn't postmark until Feb. 2. Have definitely stopped using them after this debacle and a couple of others. Thanks.