Mailing a can of Coke®

Factual Questions
21

As a postal worker (quietly picks up semi-automatic weapon) with Australia Post (quietly puts down said weapon), I can say that unusual objects aren’t all that… well… unusual.

Granted, we do get cases like the guy who mailed a frozen chicken in a paper envelope, thinking the fact that it was Express Post would enable the chicken to get there still frozen. But generally, there are objects some would consider weird which are actually designed to be posted: you can buy postcard-sized rectangles of kangaroo hide complete with fur, little plastic “message-in-a-bottle” bottles with a label on them for an address, plywood postcards, and irregularly shaped postcards cut into the shape of the picture on them (we have them here, but they seem especially popular in the United Kingdom - my favourite being Prince Charles’ head. They are the curse of the automated machinery. Charlie’s ears jam it every time).

From memory, Some items I’ve seen posted:

  1. A matchbox
  2. A coconut
  3. G’day Opal
  4. Bicycles (sent as a parcel - not that uncommon)
  5. 11KG of gold (this was sent via Security Post. They no longer do it).
  6. Cardboard beer coasters used as postcards (popular with drunken backpackers).
  7. A golf putter
  8. An emu egg (these are very large, and extremely hard. I’d wager it got to its destination ok).
  9. 35mm film cylinders
  10. Various mechanical and automotive components (sent loose as parcels).

I have heard a (most likely apocryphal) story which I think took place in the USA many decades ago. A guy had to send his young daughter (or niece or something) alone by train to relatives in a town down the line. Deciding that the train fare was too much, he posted the girl (the mail went on the same train anyway). She had a label with stamps on it tied to her with a string, and spent a pleasant enough journey in the caboose. The guard (this word used in the US?) even gave her a cup of tea.

Here’s how it works (in theory) in Australia, and I’m sure pretty much everywhere else:

Mail posted in a box on the street is, a mixture of loose large and small letters, parcels, postcards, and other weird stuff which shouldn’t be in there in the first place. It is collected and taken to a sorting centre. Before the Optical Character Reader (OCR) machines can sort the stuff, it has to be “faced up” (all facing the same way with the stamp in the top right-hand corner). The machine which does this is the mail’s first port of call in the delivery process. It also removes oversized letters, parcels, and junk, which get sorted manually using more old-fashioned methods.

The people who operate this machine are the guys who get to see the interesting stuff. Most of the weirdest stuff is junk (it’s amazing how many people use pillar boxes as garbage cans). I can assure you that operating that machine is not much fun on a Sunday morning when all the bags from Kings Cross and Darlinghurst (Sydney’s sleaze district) from the previous Saturday night start coming in. A typical haul would be:

  1. McDonalds wrappers
  2. An opened but unfinished can of Coke
  3. X-rated pornographic magazines ("Cripes, my girlfriend’s walking this way! Aah, a posting box.)
    -and sometimes-
  4. Used syringes (which is why we have to wear thick leather gloves)

Makes me think that postal workers are surprisingly sane, all things considered. :smiley:

22

Hah, Loaded Dog, the Better Half says he can top that. True Story–a while ago here, a (female) Part-Time Flexible went out to do Collections on a route and found <ahem> human feces in a collection box. She went back to the office and told the supervisor, “Uh-uh, no way, I ain’t collectin’ THAT box”, and he told her, “Yes, you are. You’re a Part-Time Flexible and you’re the lowest form of life here at the Post Office. Do it. Just bring it all back here, somebody else will clean it up.”

So she did. History does not record who had to clean the actual mail itself, but it probably wasn’t the supervisor.

Dunno what collection boxes look like Down Under, but Up Here the slot is pretty high up off the ground. All we can figure is that somebody took a dump on the ground and then picked it up and dropped it in. Ewww.

23

I’ve sent a neon plastic fish (or two).

My friends and I do this all the time. I’ve recieved : a plastic filled egg, a travel mug etc.

I’ve sent ornate tea tins, plastic fish, etc.

others I’ve seen/heard of include :

a pair of (clean) white jockey shorts

a fireman’s hat

a melmac plate where the address was imbedded in the plate as part of the decoration.

lots of fun.

as for the can of coke - the possible problem might be that the can could get crushed and break open. But that might not be a problem if you pay for priority mail handling.

24

Is there a General Question still on the table?

25

Manhattan: My question was answered. Not only was it answered, but it was answered in a way that was entertaining and informative. In other words, in the best tradition of SDMB. Thank you!

Quasi

26

I aim to please, m’man. I remembered seeing the page linked from Slashdot, so I searched for it there and found it.

They called it “pushing the envelope.” Heheheheh.

27

Reading this thread prompted me to register…

I have sent or received many odd items through the good old USPS. It was a kind of game between my friends and I in college. The best was a varnished Pop-Tart with a mailing label. Other items included fake palm leaves, cardboard tubes (nothing inside, just a tube), blocks of Lucite, airline barfbags, and a letter written in ball point on a folded piece of tin foil.

Just wanted to share.

28

The most exciting thing I ever mailed was a chunk of wood from the lumber mill where I was working.

I got bored at work one day so I sat down with a chunk of wood (2x4 about 4 feet long) and a couple of wood crayons (used to make marks on the wood to indicate grade) and wrote a letter to a college friend of mine. I wrote the entire letter out on the wood in the crayon and then wrote his address (and mine for return) and stapled the postage to the wood …

the ‘letter’ got through just fine !!!

29

The first person who comes up with weight and postage fee for a 12 oz. can will be mailed not only a can of Coke but a can of Labatt Blue as a control group.

Any takers?