IF LETTER IS LOST, CONTACT THE POSTAL SERVICE FOR TRACE

Everyone knows the mail must go through, but where it goes through is a mystery sometimes.

Last Tuesday, Linus Meyer of 1013 Elm received a workers' compensation check mailed to him from Philadelphia on Dec. 22.

Where does mail go when it spends seven weeks in postal oblivion? In this case, the possible explanations are numerous.

Meyer was having his first-class mail forwarded at the time to Killeen, Texas, where he was visiting his son for the holidays. The rest of his mail was being held by the post office.

The check was sorted in Cape Girardeau on Christmas Day, then sent on to Springfield, which handles computerized forwarding for 400 post offices in the region.

Springfield's designation is the last official mark on the wayward check's trail.

Cape Girardeau Postmaster Mike Keefe said there are many possible explanations. For starters, Texas was the third forward notice Meyer had put in during the year, the other two going to addresses in California.

The computer may have mistakenly forwarded the check to one of the old addresses, Keefe said.

In addition, forwarding automatically undercuts the postal service's pledge to deliver that piece of mail as quickly as possible. "Once it's forwarded it loses its time value," Keefe said.

"... As soon as he starts forwarding his mail, it takes longer."

It's also possible that when mail arrives at its forwarding destination late, the recipient forgets to return it, Keefe said.

The check also could have been one that wasn't forwardable, Keefe said.

And sometimes the explanation for a lost letter is exquisitely simple, Keefe said. A mail carrier holding first-class letters for an address could put an envelope in the wrong side of his or her case.

Keefe said a single route may have as many as 40 holds in force at any one time.

"Obviously, it's been sitting somewhere."

This story does have a moral. Meyer, who formerly worked in pipeline construction and has lived in Cape Girardeau for five years, didn't call the post office about the check while it was missing.

He did call his insurance company, which canceled the check and issued him another one.

Keefe says a call alerting the post office to the situation might have solved the mystery. He urged postal customers to phone about long-missing mail, "especially when a check is involved."