I live in ___________, but I have a _____________ address.

Well, it's been quite some time since I made an entry.  Beginning now, I plan to add entries several times a week, so cue the excitement.

For my return to the blogosphere, I ease back into things by tackling a fairly light subject regarding addresses.  When I moved to Indiana, I was confused to hear people say something like "I live in Indianapolis, but I have a Zionsville address."  What in the heck does that mean?!?  You live where you live.  If you live in Indianapolis, how can you possibly have anything other than an Indianapolis address?

Perusing the real estate ads today, I saw a listing for a house in Hamilton County near 102nd St & College Avenue.  The house was clearly north of 96th Street which is the Marion-Hamilton county line.  We all know that Indianapolis does not extend into Marion County and this area north of 96th Street near College Avenue is within the City of Carmel.  Yet, the real estate listing indicated that the house had an Indianapolis address but was in the Carmel-Clay school district. 

How is it that a house in the City of Carmel has an Indianapolis address?  I suspect that perhaps it has something to do with where the post office is located for that particular zip code.  What I don't get is why people have come to believe that their address might be different than the reality of where they live.  If you live at 102nd & College and give out your address as 10200 N College Ave, Carmel IN 46280, is your mail not going to be delivered because you are told that you have an Indianapolis address, not a Carmel one?  I can't imagine it wouldn't get delivered.  I always thought that, with the advent of zip codes, the city listed on your address really wasn't relevant since it would be so highly improbable that there the same street address would exist in two municipalities that share a zip code.  In fact, when I once lived in the Twin Cities suburb of Apple Valley, I would often, just for fun, give out my address as being in St. Paul and was not aware of any issues whatsoever with getting my mail successfully delivered. 

 I don't get it.  I even recall people saying that certain neighborhoods were more desirable because they had addresses in a particular municipality even though it was known that they were actually within a different municipality.  I certainly want to believe that the post office is capable of delivering mail to two different municipalities within the same zip code.  Is there something unique about Indiana and this phenomenon of living in one municipality, but having an address in a different municipality?  Please clue me in and/or let me know if I'm wrong on this one.