I voted in person but was flagged and interviewed before I could cast my ballot. The poll worker said there were others.

The ballots in the article were sent back by voters to the Board of Elections, but were delivered to state's Secretary of State, rather than to the local clerk/treasurer's office where they should have been sent for tabulation.

Your experience sounds like you either didn't receive your absentee ballot at home (or chose not to vote absentee), but went to the polls in person. It is pretty standard to require a person showing up at the polls after requesting an absentee ballot to vote a provisional ballot (to ensure that the person isn't voting twice - once by mail, and once in person. There's at least one situation like this in every precinct I've ever observed.

Are you in a suburb of a larger community? Maybe a little meet-up/postcard party-type get-together where one or two of you take everybody’s ballots to the nearby city, and drop them off at a post office there?

In some states, the absentee ballot can only be deposited in the mail or returned to the board of elections by a limited number of people - like a family member.