Well, so, my little nest of vipers had a gift to purchase and send to a friend far, far way thus off to the shop we did go.
Gift acquired, surprisingly quickly, it was off to the post office to get one of they flat-pack postal boxes. I checked the gift and mentally – yeah, I know - figured the size of box required and took a look at wot was available and found it was quite a bewildering display. However, I got wot looked about the right size and we headed for home to prepare the package for posting.
I’m sure you’re familiar with these flat boxes wot with folding and tucking transform into a proper box. Easy to do and I have, indeed, ‘built’ many before. However, with advancing years it would seem they become somewhat more of a puzzle.
I followed the pictorial instructions and soon had a box before me. Whoa! Where’s the address to and from panels gone then? Damn. I’d ‘built’ it inside out.
Flattened him out again I did and this time, as per the Mudjokivis; I built it with the plain side inside, put the plain side, blank side inside, so to get the address side outside. Job done and with the copious use of bubble wrap and sealing tape he was ready to post. And posting the package proved to be a tad educational.
I remember the time when, if you had something to get to someone else, you packaged it to suit and sent it. Times, it seem, have changed as when I got to the post office, and after weighing the package, I was asked wot was inside.
”Just a couple of gifts.” said I.
”And those gifts would be?” the Post Mistress continued.
”Perfume is wot it would be.” I answered.
”Oh dear, wot a shame, it’s illegal to send perfume.”
Who knew eh? It’s a dizzying list of prohibited stuff. Seems careful research is now required prior to posting stuff in these enlightened times. One also wonders at the difference between the postal service and such as they big online retailers... Lost I be.
End result? She has enough perfume to see her through a minimum of another four lock-downs and I’ve honed my picture puzzle solving abilities a tad.
Quote; Billy Vaughan.
“At a bank, post office or supermarket, there is one universal law which you ignore at your own peril; the shortest line moves the slowest.”
7 comments:
When I was in infant, c 1948, just before Christmas, in rural Scotland, we received a chicken, strictly speaking a nice hen, from my Irish farming grandparents. The chook was gutted nicely with useful bits still in place but not plucked. It had no packaging and a brown cardboard address label was tied round its legs, with of course our address written on it and the stamps.
Thinking about it now, it shows how quick the delivery service was in those "primitive" days and also how unsqueamish the GPO staff were.
Later on in the 60s when Xmas working in GPO sorting parcels I came across the same thing - hen, dead, with address label on its legs.
But in those days we had meat shops with carcases hanging where the customers could see them, and little bunnies, and ducks, and pheasants etc. hanging outside.
It is a miracle we survived. And nobody had allergies or asthma.
It looks to me as if balloons filled with flammable gas are allowed. If you fill with Hydrogen you have the bonus of a very light package?
There ya go. Gift sorted. No need to thank me.
That list of prohibited items is weird.
Flamable materials? What do you wrap it in. Even the stamp is forbidden.
Gun for sporting use? Eh? So AK47 is ok, so long as you do not enjoy shooting people.
And better suck all the air out 'cause oxidising oxygen is a NO, NO.
Environmentally hazardous material. Wee Greeter, Blessed be her name, would have something to say about that. Everything. Even the process of transporting mail will destroy the planet.
Perishable stuff. Given delivery times that is very understandable.
Definitely a case of "Duh...Da cumputah sez no."
No matter what's in the box, I always lie and say it's chocolates.
Doonhamer,
Oh yes. And don't forget pidgins. Slowly, slowly so much is changing and/or being taken away from us right before our eyes.
Grandad,
I thought about sending the package by balloon but the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.
Man Beach,
Yup, me as well before but this package was going through two customs points and knowing my luck, unlike days gone by when they'd just wave it through, they'd probably do a search, find neither of us had been co-co popped, and thrown the book at us.
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