I went to the post office this morning to mail some earrings that I had sold on eBay. I had wrapped them in bubble wrap, then put them in a heavy weight 6x9 white envelope that I had folded in half for extra protection. The lady at the post office told me that they couldn't accept the envelope. I asked her why and she said that due to the anthrax scares, they couldn't accept such an envelope. I asked her what I needed to do to mail the earrings, and she said that they had to be in a manila envelope. So I said, "You mean to tell me that I can't mail them in a white envelope, but I can mail them in a manila envelope that is exactly the same as the white envelope, except for the color." She said that was correct.

So..... I brought the envelope home and took out the earrings, and put them in a manila envelope and went back to the post office. She mailed them - no problem! I don't know about you, but I sure feel safer! GEEZ!

Then I was watching the local news at noon. We're expecting some icy weather for the first time this year, and they were interviewing the folks who spread the salt/sand on the roads to see if they were ready. The manager of that department told the reporter that he wished there had been more snowy days before this, just to give his guys more experience in the salt trucks, because those trucks just didn't handle too well on the ice. !!!!!!! The trucks that are supposed to clear our streets of ice don't handle well on ice.

Is it just me, or is it just getting weirder and weirder????

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), January 29, 2002

Answers

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Gosh Cheryl your post office experience is odd. I have been shipping things for ebay in everything you can imagine and our local post office never questions. How strange. I often cut up cardboard boxes and fold the pieces of cardboard over to ship feathers etc. They never bat and eyelid!! Kim

-- kim (fleece@eritter.net), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Was their reasoning that white powder is too easily hidden against a white envelop, as opposed to a manila one?

And Cheryl, I for one could do without the inflammatory rhetoric whose political beliefs are different than yours. We are all human beings, with real lives and feelings, and know not a whit what its like to live in their movie. (MONITOR'S NOTE: The inflammatory rhetoric comment refers to a post which has since been deleted.)

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

I don't think that's an actual postal regulation but it seems the local post offices can make their own rules on this stuff. The post office here has problems with tape. You cannot have 100% of the package covered in plastic or tape. I think the anthrax stuff is ridiculous because it doesn't neccesarily come in the form of white powder, it could be any color and a lethal amount could be so small that you wouldn't be able to see it no matter what color it is.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Yes, things are getting weird!I had to go to the court house the other day and I had to empty my pockets and go thru a metal detector. Mean while a sheriff was searching my purse! He went thru every little pocket. What is this world coming to? Our courthouse is in a small out of the way town. Do they think the terrorist's would really want to be bothered to take the time to do anything here? Let alone even realize the place exists? I think sometimes they are going to far. Also, my husband is a truck driver, and about a month he was hauling steel. They would not let him into Canada until they could verify his load with the company he was hauling for because the paper work he gave them didn't say what he was hauling, but otherwise it was correct. He was held up for 13 hours! The dumbest part of this whole thing is that he had a flat bed trailer and the steel wasn't tarped. They could see exactly what he was hauling! Go figure!

-- Jo in PA (farmerjo02@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Maybe it's just us'n's Post Office in Kansas Cheryl as I had exactly the same problem. I took a "used" bubble wrap manilla envelope and cut it down to size to mail earrings to someone in another state. I placed this envelope inside a white envelope and attempted to mail it. Nope. . . nothing doing.

I had to go purchase another bubble wrapped manilla envelope to mail the earrings in.

And . . . as to other things about the country, state and so on . . . things are getting WEIRDER constantly. Sometimes I wonder about the USA and the people in it or those running it. Things make no sense anymore.

I always tell hubby "This is why there will never be a "close- contact" with beings from another world even if they existed!!!" It's because they will intercept our television advertising and programs and pass us by saying "Forget it, there is NO intelligent life down there!!!"

Too weird!!!

-- quinn wolfe (wolfiequinn@hotmail.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Cheryl, no doubt about it, the Taliban have won. They have us treating each othjer the way they treat their own!!!! Mission accomplished!

-- woodsbilly (coleenl@penn.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

remember the good old days when conspiracy theorists were considered nuts? black helicopters, tin-foil hats and all that? it's called the nightly news now.

-- B. Lackie - Zone3 (cwrench@hotmail.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Some friends flew up to visit us a few weeks ago. While they were waiting for their rental car sirens went off, doors automatically shut & locked, hazard-suited men came running in & NO ONE PAYED ANY ATTENTION! It was business as usual. It seems the people "in charge" are panicking & over-reacting while the rest of us just try to live our own lives.

-- Bonnie (stichart@plix.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Earthmama, what do you mean by inflammatory rhetoric? I don't have a problem with people having differing political views than my own. What happened at my post office this morning had nothing to do with politics! For the post office to tell me that I can't mail something in a white envelope, but I can mail it in a brown envelope that is otherwise identical to the white one, is just silly! I understand that precautions must be taken these days, but they should at least be precautions that make some sort of sense.

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

Cheryl, glad to see you responded to earthmother. I couldn't figure what the devil she was getting at either. Wonder if she will explain.

-- Huh! (puzzled2@aol.com), January 29, 2002.

Response to A Bizarre Morning!

I have a relative that works at the post office and as she put it "If you worked there and were a potential target, How safe would YOU want to be? So you see it is not "bizarre", but precautionary and it actually helps speed processes up when packages get to the GMF, where risk potentials are higher than the local post offices. Unfortunately, many are beginning to forget that we are still at war and precautions must be taken.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

We do need to remember two, I believe, USPS workers died as the result of the anthrax going through the distribution centers. Still, some of the actions do seem more than a tad extreme - such as irradiating mail going to certain zip codes. Also, shortly afterwards the USPS stopped selling any pre-stamped envelopes. I asked why at the local PO. They said as near as they could figure any of these used in the future with the same stamp imprint as the anthrax spreaded used would get immediate attention as they would stand out. However, at that time they had received nothing from headquarters on being on the lookout for them.

On the white vs manila issue, only thing I can think of is the manila ones may be denser and less likely to bleed small spores through them.

Whoever sent the anthrax sure seems to have known what they were doing.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), January 30, 2002.

Gosh, Cheryl, I was absolutely not referring to your question!

Seems the post I WAS referring to has been deleted! Now I do not think it was posted by you, but another Cheryl, and now it is gone, but it contained a rant about Hillary Clinton, etc, and was extremely nasty. Sorry for the confusion........you are certainly right about weird things happening!!

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.

Yes, we all are safe in our little cocoon lives sitting at our desks entering posts into this forum and complaining about anything that affects our life styles. I am safe in my Wisconsin home and have no more worries about life then when the pension checks arrive or if the Social Security payment is properly entered into the bank account. Yes, have to take off my belt to get into certain buildings and I've sworn off steel-toed shoes for same reason. BUT, terrorists are always looking for a tiny notch in our armor just as the computer viruses seek out the one computer to spread its germs. My PO does not question my mailings but if they did, I would honor their demands. Perhaps 100,000 pieces of mail can get through but #100,001 contains enough anthrax or other germs to wipe out thousands. The system is not become weirder but safer. Daniel Boone once thought that civilization was becoming too crowded if he could see the smoke of a neighbor. Now we don't know the names of our neighbors nor what or who they are or what they are up to. I suffered through the loss of the Twin Towers on 9-11 and while many of us were simply seeing steel crashing to the ground, I knew that so and so was on such and such floor and just hoped that they made it to the ground floor before the collapse. Didn't happen. Yes, safe in our little cocoons and annoyed by a minor convenience now and then under new rules. Live with it! You are alive. My pals that worked in WTC 2 are not. To bring them back, I'd be willing to pass through metal detectors, eye scans, fingerprints, whatever, every day for the rest of my life. And if my postmaster says that he wants my mail to go out in a certain packaging, no problem. The best thing that we can consider is that someone above us in the governmental aspect is looking out for us to assure that our biggest problem is worry about if we are going to get 12 tomato seedlings from 24 seeds started. Yes, then worry about what to do with the extra 12 plants!

Live with it, friends, as we are alive. USPS is doing their part to assure that you stay that way. You all may be as honest as the day is long and 100,000 posts come this way. It's #100,001 that could throw the old adage's "monkey wrench" into the whole works. Big Brother is indeed watching and like it or not, he's doing a decent job of it. So, please kill the USPS complaints. You are alive. And the overall plan is to keep you all that way.

Martin

-- Martin Longseth (paquebot@merr.com), January 30, 2002.

Earthmama, thanks for the post! See..... it was a weird day! LOL!

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), January 30, 2002.

everyone knows that they can go to the usps website, sign up, and "order" all of their boxes and tape for free don't they, plus it's delivered to your house for you. priority stuff only. please note: if a package even has priority tape on it, then it must be shipped priority mail. we have two tape guns, one with priority tape, the other with clear tape.

-- steve (stevetamara@mindspring.com), January 30, 2002.

That's true, Steve. But I don't want to spend $3.20 to mail something that I can mail in a manila envelope for $.57! I just know not to buy the heavyweight 6 x 9 white envelopes anymore. I'll stick with the 6 x 9 manila envelopes, and everyone will be happy!

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), January 30, 2002.

Cheryl, those salt trucks are horrble on ice, I know it doesn't make sense, but as over the road truck drivers, we speak from 20+ years of experience, ice and slippery roads are as hard to handle with the salt truck as any other vehicle! When the bed is full od salt they aren't too bad, when things get "dicey" they are supposed to "chain up" if they have them. Last snow storm I was following one, he slid clear through an intersection instead of stopping, he was out of salt and on his way back to fill 'er up, I had no problem stopping however. Experience will tell, doesn't it?

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), January 30, 2002.

Salt trucks make it better traction behind them - but they have to drive on the slippery stuff themselves. :) Duals on the truck just make it worse, more rubber on the ice means less lbs/square foot.

The funny part is the comment, that the drivers would have some experience if there had been more slippery days. But, the first icy day of the season is always the first one, whether it comes early or late in the year! It's like saying 16 year olds don't have enough driving experience to get a drivers licence, they would be better drivers at 21...

--->Paul

-- paul (ramblerplm@hotmail.com), January 30, 2002.

Way back before 9-11, my oldest son was sending a small stepladder to his brother in Japan. The ladder was not wrapped, and the lady at the postoffice really gave him a rough time about the paperwork, exact contents, exact amount it was worth, etc. He finally got disgusted and told her her to write bomb on it if it made her feel better. She did and the ladder never arrived. Of course we need to take precautions to be safe, but some people are just difficult to deal with, aren't they?

-- Barb Fischer (bfischer42@hotmail.com), January 30, 2002.

Well Cheryl I don't know what they said, but it's not true. They accept white envelopes all the time. You're return envelopes for phone bill, credit cards, electric company are all white. Some even have the empty window, in which almost anything can be introduced to the envelope.

re: Ice. No one does well the first day of winter, whether on snow or ice. You forget everything over the summer and fall months. Chaining up takes far too long even with helpers. Around here it's against the law to use salt. It pollutes the watershed and kills the grass (what we call it). Sand and cinders is all that is allowed. Even the liquid melt they use in big cities hasn't been approved here.

-- matt johnson (wyo_cowboy_us@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.