You wouldn't think so, but mail is really boring. Sure, it's sort of interesting at first, but once you see your 10,000th letter (which is probably sometime on your first day of USPS employment) you realize that envelopes are not much to look at, and if you do happen to glance a little too long at a postcard, you'll undoubtedly learn about the weather in some bland vacation spot. I'd like to see mail art, but I never have. The most interesting mail by far comes from prisons, where inmates draw elaborate pictures on their envelopes. [The top three most popular inmate drawings: crosses, hearts, and Garfield.]

Every now and then, however, you come across something stupid written on a piece of mail. OK, it's not that stupid to the layperson, and I was probably guilty of this stuff, too before I figuratively donned the blue. But man. I get tired of it. And so I vent, but uh, only as a public service. Avoid the following to receive better service, or to diminish your expectation that such measures will help.

56828IL23814700OO////////56R5721212111110O6 | Officially the worst of the lot. Take a look at all that crap on your junk mail or your magazines, you know, the stuff that isn't your address. That crap actually means something, and I have to deal with it all day long. Many companies are nice and make the numbers less than 10 digits long, while others insist on a good 20-digit alphanumeric string to get them started. Make lots of repeating characters, and use a font that makes it impossible to tell the difference between the letter O and the number 0. That rocks. For some reason, the worst culprits are tobacco companies and Christian evangelists.

Do Not Bend | My, oh, my. This one makes me roll on the floor, holding my belly and laughing in hysterical sobs. See, you don't realize this, but mail runs through all kinds of horrendous Rube Goldberg machines with all kinds of claws and teeth and evil nature. And while we try not to harm anything, we don't sort each of the (literally) tens of thousands of letters we see every day by hand, carrying them around on silk pillows. We dump them by the tubful into the letter-eaters. If you don't want your letter to, ahem, get bent, then pack it accordingly.

Do Not Discard | Generally, you only find this on mail that is absolutely worthless. Because, if you have to say it, then well, it's an issue, isn't it? No one writes "Do Not Discard" on anything important, such as their electric payment or their letters to Grandma.

Doesn't Live Here! Return to Sender! | OK, this is an honest enough mistake. I've probably done it myself in the past. So, we accidentally sent some mail to your house for the people who used to live there. All right, mistakes happen. But it doesn't get returned to sender. It gets forwarded. What I love is when the person takes a Sharpie and angrily inks out the name and address, so that we have no idea whose mail this is, or the old address, so we can't send it on. Nice. Thanks for the help.

Postmaster -- Deliver Immediately -- Men's Golf Information | 1. Yes, the postmaster inspects every single piece of mail to see if there is a message for him on the outside. 2. Uh, yeah, 'cuz we were gonna just hang on to it for awhile and deliver it next winter. 3. Oh, please.

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3 Comments:

predicate nominative said...

i have sent and received some lovely mail art. of course, i only have the pieces i've received, but that sender is the better artist of the two of us. i'd be happy to show you.

what happens when you see mail addressed to yourself? what happens when tom peters gives you a hug?

8:52 AM  

Barrett said...

When I see mail addressed to myself, I pull it off the machine and take it home. It's happened a couple of times now, and it's awesome.

I'm going to make my own mail art. Right now. Or later.

12:15 PM  

c-freak said...

i've gotten handmade post cards from starfire when he's been on the road. they are sweet and make me feel good.

12:13 PM  

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Barrett Chase is the creator of Barrett Chase Dot Com, a text-based blog that ran from February, 2003 - February, 2005. The Product is a new vision and a new start. You may contact him by emailing bchase at gmail dot com.

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