WATERLOO - "On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

Twelve drummers drumming … "

Hard to wrap, perhaps. An impractical gift to be sure.

But if the drummers, lords, ladies and assorted fowl have the proper postage, employees with the U.S. Postal Service say they do their best to deliver. And will that be express mail, priority or first-class?

"Customer service is our primary goal," says Brad Meskimen, acting plant manager at the Waterloo Post Office.

Most patrons - whether mailing maids a-milking or a bushel basket of holiday greeting cards - never get beyond the front counter at their local post office. Or get anymore involved in the process than opening their mailbox. The letter goes in the slot, and that's the end of it - for them.

At that point, however, the fun is just beginning behind the scenes and after hours at 300 Sycamore St. The Waterloo facility is a 24-hour postal distribution center, a collection point for packages and letters for much of Northeast Iowa. The coverage area includes Decorah, Mason City and about half the real estate between downtown and Dubuque, Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown.

A large job on normal days. A Herculean task in December.

"It's our biggest time of the year. And it's the month we make the most revenue," Meskimen says.

On Monday, Dec. 13, more than 500,000 parcels pass through the Waterloo office. Of those, 411,300 are letters processed by sophisticated automated contraptions capable of reading typewritten addresses and Aunt Rose's cursive. One machine handles 40,000 pieces an hour. The Waterloo office has five of them.

But not every lumpy item will go through. Sugar plums inside Christmas cards, for instance.

"Candy wreaks havoc on the machine," Meskimen says.

So, employees cancel another 27,500 letters by hand Monday. There are also 18,100 priority boxes. All that, and the day is just the second busiest of the year. The busiest will be Monday, Dec. 20.

"There's a lot of logistics involved. Logistics are a nightmare," Meskimen says.

Mail processing theory stays the same during the holiday crush, but more of everything is added. More trucks, more trips back and forth, more overtime, more help.

"We start our Christmas planning in the middle of the summer," Meskimen says.

Postal officials review last year's effort and make projections. They assess equipment needs and figure out how to fix whatever didn't work well. They make their list, checking it twice.

And then it snows.

"Snow is the outlying variable that you never take into account," Meskimen says.

With that kind of pressure during an already stressful season, a bit of Scroogery might be forgiven. But postal employees who've been around the cancellation mark a few times actually look forward to the inevitable onslaught that begins after Thanksgiving.

Rhonda Lauer has nearly 33 years of experience, much of it with first-class mail. Besides festive Christmas cheer, the category also includes mailed items tagged as biological hazards - blood, saliva, urine, kidney stones, dead animals …

"It all comes through me."

Lauer maintains a merry outlook.

"It's fun," she says. "It's just I don't have much time to do much at home. My Christmas tree comes out of the box already decorated."

Jackie Murray has been at the Waterloo office since 1989. She enjoys the variety and volume and meeting Christmas casuals, the temporary workers hired for the holiday season.

"It's a change of pace," she says.

Close by, Christmas casual Joanne Good is barely 40 minutes into her first night, pitching priority mail packages between San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Oakland, Calif.

"Wow. It's amazing," she says.

Carla Gary works under a deadline. A sign overhead reads:

"OPERATION O1O

CLEARANCE TIME 2140."

Which means carts filled with raw, unsorted mail must be empty by 9:40 p.m. But at this time of year, she doesn't need a sign to remind of the urgency or importance of all that love being shipped from here to there.

"It's Christmastime. That's when people come together. You want to send their mail on time to the place it's going," Gary says.

Lauer also ascribes intimate significance to what she does at work.

"Mail is very important. You can hold it in your hand. They took the time to write it. They care about you," she says.

Most mailing mishaps are created by customers, not postal workers. Forgetting ZIP codes is a popular miscue.

"Sometimes they put down their phone number or Social Security number," Murray says. "And then they wonder why they don't get their mail."

Despite popular perception and tired jokes to the contrary, mail generally gets where it's going. Plant manager Meskimen says recent service tests in Waterloo revealed 96 percent of letters and packages arrived on time. And a recent partnership with Federal Express is taking service and customer approval ratings to higher, unprecedented levels.

"You can't say postal service without saying service," Meskimen says.

Even if it's unwrapped items like a coconut from Hawaii, football from Green Bay, hockey stick, tire or assorted car parts - all things employees at Waterloo over the years have moved on down the line.

"We had an engine come through one time in Cedar Rapids," Meskimen says. "You can't mail that."

But just about everything else goes. A partridge in a pear tree is really just a matter of figuring out where to put the stamps.

Call Dennis Magee at (319) 291-1451 or e-mail dennis.magee@wcfcourier.com.