Another update: Never use certified mail

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(Latest update:  On September 16, 2018, the U.S.P.S. emailed that it was still searching for my passport which it had delivered to the visa office June 25, 2018.)

(Update: On July 18, 2018, the U.S. P. S. emailed that it was still searching for my passport which it had delivered to the visa office on June 25, 2018.)

The U.S. Postal Service kept my passport for 26 days.
 
I mailed it to the visa office on May 30, 2018.  It was delivered to its destination on June 25, 2018.  The expected delivery date, according to the receipt, was June 1, 2018.

That was for a distance of 3.4 miles on the same street.

The U.S. Postal Service charged me $7.83 to mail my passport via certified mail which included $2.75 for a return receipt which I never received.

Strapped to the shell of a tortoise and ambling up the street, it likely would have reached its destination sooner.


More than one person has suggested that perhaps someone along the way attempted (succeeded?) to steal my identity.


Trying to locate my passport on the long journey up Connecticut Avenue, I made numerous telephone calls and trips to three different post offices, enlisted an aide in my congressman’s office, tweeted twice to the Post Office (no reply), and called the State Department to get a new passport (for an additional $200+). 

At every post office branch I visited, the clerks and managers had the same answer:  They had no more information than what I was able to read online. 

At the Oakton, Virginia post office, a clerk rolled her eyes and said to me:  "You mailed your passport by certified mail in D.C. and you're surprised it's lost?"

It was.  Lost in post office limbo, "in transit" and nothing more beyond June 7, 2018.

Try, just try, getting the phone number of anyone at the U.S. Post Office to help you. 

Here are a couple for you to save: Friendship Heights Distribution Office: 202-842-3332 (May take several phone calls before anyone answers and several minutes on hold if anyone answers) and the
Brentwood Warehouse: 202-636-1259 (May take several phone calls before anyone answers and several minutes on hold if anyone answers). 

“It may be in the cage,” said a postal official at the Washington Square branch where I originally mailed my passport, where I returned, seeking mercy. “Ask them to check the cage.” 
  
But "the cage" was empty (save the ones at the border with actual people) and lacked mercy, too.
 
It only took a maximum 30 minutes of holding, if anyone answered the phone at Friendship Heights or Brentwood, at which time I had to hang up, given my job requirements and other necessary parts of life which demand attention.

Holding at Friendship Heights allows the person who may answer the phone to try and find a supervisor or a clerk for Zone 20008 to "check the cage," and that person, likely as not, does not return to the phone, unless you can hold for double-digit minutes.

At Brentwood, the phone rings about five times before it goes to voice mail where the message is: “You may not leave messages here.”

At various times, Friendship Heights and Brentwood each blamed the other for my lost passport.  

When I called the State Department in desperado mood, a woman there seemed incredulous that the Post Office had lost my passport.  "M'am," I said, "I've got the proof right here, if you want to see that it's on hold somewhere in post office la-la land." 

She scheduled an emergency meeting for me to obtain another passport so I could make my trip.  I gathered up the necessary documents for another passport:  a certified birth certificate, more paperwork, and a bottle of Russian vodka.

Earlier I put a tracer on my envelope which is only good for seven days.

Suddenly, the passport turned up.

When I visited Russia in 2013 I went to the Russian consulate’s office and got my own visa. It took me two or three visits but I got it in a timely manner and did not worry about it. I knew exactly where it was.  (Besides, I liked practicing my new Russian at the consulate's: "Здравствуйте," I said, and she looked at me like I was from another country. I have learned that Russians don't smile much; they think it's a sign of imbecility, and besides, my Russian instructor says:  "They've had a hard life." Oh, yeah?  What's their mail service like?) 

For this trip, the visa fee was built in the tour price, and the tour company, Travel All Russia, told me to use
"a reliable mailing service" (either UPS or Fed Ex, it stipulated) to mail my visa application.  Since UPS and FedEx both leave packages and envelopes at doors and do not collect signatures at my dilapidated complex where mail is frequently stolen, I thought the USPS would be a better option.  
 
To finally retrieve my passport and visa, I took the Metro on Tuesday out to the visa service in northwest D.C. not far from Ohio (IMO) where I had left multiple explicit instructions not to mail my passport since my trip is this year and not next century.  I probably won't live that long anyway.  

Take my words for it: If you live in and around D.C. and plan to visit Russia,  skip hours of worry, phone calls, visits, additional costs, frenzy, and visit the consulate's office yourself (where speaking Russian is not required).
 
As my wise son says: “This is what you get with government and no competition.”

I may start my own visa application service, and I shall not be using the U.S. Postal "Service" for my deliveries.  I'll be using my own wheels.  Write for info.  Dos vedanya.

patricialesli@gmail.com