USPS

It wasn't until weeks later, when the letter from the library arrived via the US Postal Service, that she realized exactly her error. As unconsciously as she had executed the act of misplacement, still, when she saw that the books, now six weeks overdue, were considered permanently lost, she recalled that afternoon, the turning into the Post Office with Hildilid's Night and The Mitten and then turning out of the drive-by drop-off without them.

She had been thinking of something else, of course, as usual, as something else is infinitely more interesting than the downtown traffic at 3:47 pm on a Tuesday afternoon. That is how it came to be that the library books, rather than ending up in the library drop box, as they properly should have, and as was her every intention, landed in the drop box of the US Postal Service post office just two blocks south of the library.