banane

Mail (No, Not Male) Obsession

I have a minor fetish with mail lately- postage, the process of mail, etc. It’s out of a Millhauser book. Large, ornate, working process that runs smoothly enough to be functional. Neat that some businesses hinge on it, like NetFlix, for example. So coupla thoughts on Mail:

Thanks to coworker in Portland, who dug these nuggets out of a research project on Metropolitan Statistical Areas, which I do adore, which I believe he got from Wikipedia on Zip Codes:

ZIP code 12345 is a unique code that belongs to a General Electric
factory in Schenectady, New York. Each year, the facility is bombarded
with letters from children to Santa Claus, addressed to “North Pole
12345″

“In 1964, at the height of his popularity, Smokey Bear, mascot of the
U.S. Forest Service, received so much fan mail that he was assigned his
own ZIP code, 2025″

I have, currently, 3 things in the mail that I’m waiting for every day and I go to the little nook near the door, and dagnabbit if some neighbor’s package of the same dimension is there.

designer jeans
period piece movie: North & South Elizabeth Gaskell novel made PBS Masterpiece Theater
camera back from repair shop

The other thing: about every day I ship something off to an Amazon buyer, and I get to walk into the North Beach USPS station and walk by the looooong line of fools and drop my package at the end of the counter, get eye contact from the person working, who quickly, with a skill that you don’t get in college, scans my package for

destination
any other marks
proper postage
my identity

Amazing. USPS rocks. And I’m not just saying that because Heather told me at this party that she liked my stamps post! OK maybe I am.

Update: My mom won an argument on selling shit @ amazon- amazon does not give you more money for higher weight items. You just get $3.49 for all books you sell, despite weight!

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 1:46 am and is filed under local color. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. View blog reactions Stumble it! You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

banane

This will bore everyone to tears, but whatever. Media rate for a pound of books- anything with a hardcover, basically, and some long tomes like Infinite Jest, is $2.07. The unabomber incident made it so that anything over a pound can't go in a mailbox. I tried it 3X and the third time got a nice little red sticker and a return. So I go to the post office- they say, you don't have to wait in line, just walk up here- if it's proper postage and over a pound, that is. Not sure htey let you skip the line for real questions. There's a shallow part of the counter (at north beach at least) and you put your over-pound-media-rate package there, get eye contact, and she/he will nod at you, and off you go.

Those arch. books- if you list on amazon make hte sender pay postage as it will probably be steep. Check the values there too.

Nancy M

I need the scoop on how you avoid the lines at USPS. And what your method is to process the Amazon reseller mess. I have 4 moving boxes of glossy architectural books - heavy! - that gotta hit the road, Jack!