Saw a dead deer on the side of the road today and it reminded me of something. I “know” a guy in Japan through a mailing list for a science-related hobby, and we used to trade things back and forth through the mail. I once mentioned to him that I had a mummified possum that I found under an old outbuilding I was tearing down. He happened to associate with some scientists at a university in Japan that had a collection of animal skeletons, and he wanted it for them. So I mailed a mummified marsupial from South Carolina to Tokyo via the USPS.
When we go on business trips my husband and I mail all of our dirty laundry back home. That leaves room in our luggage for souvenirs.
He’s a librarian, so these trips are to the yearly American Library Association’s meetings. This means we’re mailing home all of the free books, posters, and bookbags along with the laundry. (Separate boxes, of course.) Everything goes to his office, and he has learned to open the lighter packages at home.
I don’t know about beating your story, but the answer to the thread title is: I mailed a “Hi, I turned 50” poop swab. Dropping that envelope in the mailbox I almost felt like a kid comitting vandalism. “Hey, what the hell did you just put in there, kid? Stop running!”
Back when I worked in the post office people would literally mail whole tires in the mail, no box either. Just a black tire with rim and the mailing address on the actual rubber. IIRC it was $15 postage.
I mailed a package back home from Vietnam. It contained amongst other cool things, a bottle of snake whiskey, with a cobra and two green snakes. I never received it, so I’m also missing my Beer Lao shirt and “Danger Mines!” shirt.
I sent my Cologard through UPS, and the guy at the UPS Store said not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t come in and say, “I’m giving you some crap.”
Back in the 1990s, the USPS sold these plastic envelopes for about $2 and you could mail anything that would fit into them with no extra postage needed. One of my friends mailed an answering machine in one, in part because it was a situation where she really didn’t care if the person got it back or not. (FTR, they did.)
As an Amazon book re-seller, I’ve shipped some really bizarre things; by “bizarre”, I mean that they are about things like woo-on-steroids alternative medicine (no pun intended), books about non-mainstream religious views, or things that would be highly offensive to most people. Probably the best example of that would be “The Turner Diaries.”
I pilfered a half-used roll of toilet paper from Graceland, and mailed it to my sisterr as a gag gift.
My little cousin once mailed us a box of her home-made fudge for Christmas. It froze several times in the postal truck and reverted back to its original dry ingredients, and we received a box of chocolate powder and sugar and flour.
I don’t have any personally interesting stories but a friend of mine attempted to mail a Wendy’s Baconator from Minnesota to Finland. She wrapped it in several layers of plastic and foil, put that into a Tupperware style container, wrapped that in more foil/plastic then boxed it. Sadly, it never made it to its destination.
No, the Finnish (non)recipient was not expecting an edible sandwich; it was a weird gag even spurred by him lamenting how we had them here in the US and he couldn’t get one.
Haven’t actually mailed much odd stuff, but as a former mailman I’ve handled quite a lot. Cremated human remains were quite common (delivered to funeral homes in town), along with stool samples. Crickets (food for reptiles at pet stores). Had a car fender and tires come through the office occasionally. Blood samples from Highway patrol DWI arrests were picked up from a collection box on a street corner, which surprised me considering chain-of-custody issues. Delivered boxes of loose cut diamonds to jewelry stores in the mall.
The one that tickled my fancy the most was a large box that felt and sounded empty. Turned out to be a tumbleweed a lady ordered as a decoration.
