Join me on the spooky journey my scrapbook paper has taken through space and time. The tale begins on Saturday, August 2, 2025, when I ordered 13 sheets of 12”x12” scrapbook paper.
The website, Scrapbook.com, which is located in Gilbert, Arizona, processed the order and sent me a confirmation email. On Monday morning, the human staff fulfilled the order and sent me a tracking number. On Monday afternoon, the Gilbert post office logged my package in, so … so far, so good.
From here, my package took its first detour through the Twilight Zone, making the trip from Gilbert to Phoenix in minus one hour and fifteen minutes. Gilbert is 20 miles from Phoenix and they are, in fact, in the same time zone.
Twilight Zone Detour #2. My package departed from the Phoenix, AZ Distribution Center (a major hub in the western U.S.) in a timely fashion, then traveled east for two days, passing through two unnamed sorting centers, only to inexplicably arrive at Warrendale, PA, Distribution Center. Warrendale is a key hub for Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. My hub is in Syracuse, NY.
Oh happy day! Somebody in Warrendale tossed my highly anticipated scrapbook papers on to the correct conveyor belt and it finally arrived in Syracuse on Thursday morning! Usually, this means it will be in my mail box the next day!
But nooooo … the Twilight Zone isn’t done with me yet. In the wee hours of Friday morning, my little package was marked as “in transit” to the next facility … two hours before it left Syracuse!
It was next logged in at the Cortland, NY, post office, having apparently traveled there at Warp 2, since just the driving time from Syracuse to Cortland is about 40 minutes. Don’t they have to scan packages before they’re loaded and depart and then again after they arrive and are unloaded?
Cortland is not a distribution center, but rather the primary facility for mail delivery to Cortland addresses. I do not live in Cortland, but hey ho, somebody notices and, an hour later, my scrapbook paper arrives at my very own Dryden Post Office! Hurrah! … Oh wait … two minutes later, it is “processing” at the HOMER post office. Maybe I should have ordered 12 pieces of scrapbook paper. Or 14. Anything but 13!
Having never been logged out of or marked as “in transit” between Cortland, then Dryden, then Homer, my package enters its next trip through the Twilight Zone, appearing 26 hours later at the Northwest Rochester NY Distribution Center. Rochester handles mail for Western New York. My distribution center is Syracuse, guys. Syracuse. Not Rochester. Not Warrendale flipping Pennsylvania. SYRACUSE. Sigh.
As I write this (10:03 am, Sunday, August 10), the tracking page tells me my scrapbook papers are back in Syracuse again, after yet another rapid early morning transit time. Grok says the route via New York State Thruway (I-90 East) is approximately 80-90 miles and typically takes about 1.5 to 2 hours under normal conditions. Grok also says that, as I suspected, scanning happens before packages are loaded and after they are unloaded … not when trucks actually depart or arrive.
Tune in again next time to find out what happens! Will my little package of scrapbook papers take yet another trip through the Twilight Zone? Or will it arrive on Monday in my mail box? Will it be mangled from too much handling? Will the paper patterns be distorted by time travel? Can I endure the suspense?
UPDATE: My package arrived!
The USPS beat up the box, but thanks to Scrapbook.com’s excellent packaging, the papers inside are in perfect condition. ❤
SOURCES:
- My emails from Scrapbook.com
- https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction_input?strOrigTrackNum=9434650205448000282389
- Grok
- Google maps
polination.blog 
Well, thank goodness the USPO is not using AI, right?
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