Alright, there IS a mailbox for my apartment at the top of the road. I might not have known it existed because:

* my landlady never told me it was there

* it is out of sequence; there are boxes to the right of it that have both higher and lower numbers. It is physically out of order according to the direction the house numbers run, so it's set farthest left when the numbers are higher as you go to the left in the real world. We're on a beach, so linear is sort of, well, the norm. If you live south on the beach, your mailbox is to the south end of the mailbox row. And aren't the mailboxes always arranged in numerical order, according to geographic location? I mean, if you are at #450, and #460 is south of you, then #460 would be set farther south, eh? Jim, want to weigh in on this?

* my postal carrier continued to stuff mail in the box for over two months, without putting any kind of flag on my account, when it was clear that no one was picking up the mail. Jim, again, any thoughts here? I'm not wise to the internal working of the USPS.

So, now that this mystery is solved, I have called the two companies that were sending mail to the apartment, and asked them to please use the PO box.

Oy. And there's no more gin left. No adult beverages of any kind. One drink might have been appreciated.