Bumps & Bruises
When in Doubt, Spell It Out
byLinda Coleman-Willis

Once on vacation, I flew to Hollywood, Florida although my clothes were sent to Hollywood, California. After this experience you would think I would have learned. But no, I needed one more lesson.

Another time I scheduled several speaking engagements and book signings in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since I have family there I planned to spend some extra time and had them set up book signings in several other cities throughout New Mexico. To be efficient and make sure I had plenty of product without having to lug cartons around, I pre-shipped books from California to the various bookstores in New Mexico.

One of the cities was Las Vegas, New Mexico. Yes, there is a Las Vegas, New Mexico, home of my second biggest career mistake. I pre-shipped books to Las Vegas, NM. The post office saw Las Vegas and automatically assumed it was Las Vegas, NV. That explains why I was in New Mexico and my books were in Gambling/Glittering Nevada. Apparently writing the correct city, state and zip code on the package isn’t always enough for the postal service; we need to place flags, arrows, use yellow highlighters and paint a New Mexican landscape around the address label!

It took me weeks to get the books returned to me, not to mention not having them when and where I needed them. Then when they were finally returned, they were not in the original carton and some were damaged. You can guess how the post office responded: Were they insured? Lovely. They can do anything they want with my materials, arbitrarily ship them anywhere in the world they choose and if I don’t like it, it is my fault for not insuring them (which still would not cover not having them when I had customers in front of me).

The Lesson: When in doubt, spell it out. There are lots of cities that have same or similar names, different states. For example:

• Inglewood, California and Englewood, New Jersey
• Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri
• Little Rock, Arkansas and Little Rock, Texas
• Ontario, California and Ontario Canada
• London, Ontario Canada and London, England
• Trenton, Michigan and Trenton, New Jersey
• Paris, Texas and Paris, France
• Jackson Mississippi and Jackson AR, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MI, MN, MO, NC, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, WV, WI and WY. Did this guy Jackson get around, or what? Apparently he never did anything name-worthy in New England.

Imagine the possibilities if you were traveling to Mexico, Missouri; Lebenon, New Hampsire; Angola, Indiana, Berlin, Wisconsin or to Egypt, Illinois!

We are accustomed to abbreviating state names; the post office even asks us to. But if there is any chance there can be a mistake, spell out the state and highlight it. If you suspect you need to call special attention to the state as in NM and NV, do so. Better to be safe than feeling a little stupid.