MEChA student accuses post office employees of eating his Thanksgiving tamales
By ONANTZIN News
2011-11-28
Providence, RI -- A college student who could not afford plane tickets to fly home for Thanksgiving is accusing the downtown Providence post office of purposely withholding – and subsequently eating – the delicious Thanksgiving tamales that his mother mailed to him from Salinas, California.
According to a formal complaint filed by MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) with the city of Providence, Edgar Alvarez, a sophomore at Brown University, was expecting 14 frozen tamales to arrive by mail on November 23rd. The tamales (6 pork, 4 chicken, and 4 sweet-flavored ones) had been carefully prepared, frozen, packaged, and shipped by the student's mother on November 22nd, and she had specifically requested the post office's overnight delivery option to assure that they arrived on November 23rd, still in a frozen state.
But to the student's dismay, the tamales never arrived.
Instead of receiving a heartwarming package on November 23rd, the Latin American Studies undergrad received a number of conflicting stories concerning the whereabouts of his tamales from the post office employees.
"First they told me my package had been delayed because of bad weather; then, they told me that they couldn't find my package. Finally, when they saw that I wasn't leaving the post office without my tamales, they claimed that my package had been thrown away because the ice had melted," said the college sophomore.
In the complaint, Mr. Alvarez further states that he shared three of his tamales with two husky post office employees the year before, and thus, given their first-hand knowledge that he would be receiving several delicious tamales for Thanksgiving, he is holding them as the primary suspects.
"They asked me to give them more than 3 last year, but I couldn't because I was sharing them with my friends. I should have seen this coming…" said a disappointed Mr. Alvarez, who also expressed that his already miserable and lonely Thanksgiving on the frosty East Coast was even more miserable without his comfort food.
"I had nothing to eat, and neither did two of my friends who were expecting me to hook them up with some tamales. We had to raid the fridge – something I am not proud of – from my dorm room kitchen in order to find some food." stated the MEChA member. "I normally don't wish ill on people, but I hope the pork ones made them sick."
In response, the post office released a statement dismissing the student's claim.
"Yes sir, those tasty tamales thawed out and made one hell of a mess down in Milwaukee. The water that seeped from the box damaged dozens of paychecks, two extremely expensive posters, and several Netflix movies," said Hank Tercero, one of the post office employees being accused of eating the tamales. "We had no choice but to eat... [clears throat] I mean, throw them away."
No further statements were released by the post office, but we did learn that Mr. Tercero did not report to work on Monday because of an upset stomach – apparently, he is allergic to pork.