Addie, when I get my coffee shipped from Orange, MA it first goes to Shrewsbury, MA, then to our neighbor town, then to our town. My coffee never has to go through Boston. Same route for Christmas gifts our daughter has mailed from OH before we could go back home every Christmas.
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Let's see...if I drop something off at my town post office for somewhere else in my town, it goes from my PO to the next town over. From there it is bulk-shipped out to the Shrewsbury sorting location. Once it is sorted to return to my town's post office, it first goes to the neighboring post office where they (mis)sort it for drop-off at my town's PO to be delivered. OR...I could just walk to wherever it is the mail is supposed to go and probably faster, in spite of gimpy hip/sore ankles/bad feet and all.
At least our regular mail carrier is sharp. They usually catch all the mis-sorts and straighten the mail out before it hits our boxes. I can always tell when we have a sub carrier.