A Harrison woman received a Priority Mail letter Friday that was mailed 17 years ago.
Barbara Fraizer said it was a pleasant surprise because the letter contained a $200 money order.
Fraizer said she called the sender to let him know she had finally received the money order.
"He kept telling me he sent it, and of course, I said, 'Yeah it's in the mail."
The sender told Fraizer, "I told you so."
The letter was postmarked May 26, 1998, from Des Moines, Iowa, 433 miles north of Harrison.
Fraizer said she took the letter to the post office in Harrison and showed it to an employee, who showed it to his supervisor.
According to the Consumer Price Index inflation calculator, $200 in 1998 would equal $293 today.
Fraizer said she was happy to have the $200 and didn't inquire about a cost-of-inflation refund.
"They never even offered to repay the $3 it cost him to send it," she said.
Priority Mail is normally delivered within three business days, according to the U.S. Postal Service.
"In most cases, the expected delivery date printed on your receipt or provided at checkout will reflect a delivery time of 1, 2, or 3 business days and is based on origin, destination, and drop-off time," according to usps.com. "The expected delivery date does not come with a money-back guarantee."
Leisa Tolliver-Gay, a customer relations coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service in Little Rock, said the federal agency "extends its sincere apologies to this customer."
"Occurrences such as this one, with unusually lengthy delays in mail delivery, are thankfully isolated and rare," Tolliver-Gay said in an email. "Ordinarily, such delays are caused by human error and it is sometimes very difficult to pinpoint a specific location or instance causing the delay. In many cases, mail can go undetected for some time, if it inadvertently falls under heavy machinery, is accidentally left in supposedly empty mail equipment or is otherwise set aside. As soon as we find such mail pieces, we send them along to the intended recipient, with our apologies."
Fraizer said she'll find something to do with the money.
"I think I'm going to go shopping, something I usually don't do," she said.
While 17 years is a long time, it was considerably quicker than a "high-speed delivery" letter mailed in France on Jan. 27, 1877. It was delivered this year -- 138 years later -- to the great-granddaughter of the intended recipient.
The letter traveled nine miles from Sains-du-Nord to Trelon. It was an order for yarn, according to National Public Radio.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, a letter postmarked from Houlton, Maine, in 1931 finally made it to Pittsfield, Maine, last year, taking 83 years to travel 143 miles.
The nine-page letter was written by 23-year-old school teacher Miriam McMichael to her mother, according to an article in the Kennebec Journal. A 2-cent stamp was on the envelope.
Metro on 07/29/2015