Creating and sending gifts out these past two weeks has been so much fun! I've had some amazing adventures...especially at the Keizer, Oregon Post Office, where I have now discovered it is illegal to put your own stamps on any package weighing 13 ounces or more and simply dropping it in a mail box!
I have a small postage scale and an online postage chart at home, and wanting to use some of my Gees Bend stamps, I simply weighed my package, computed my postage, applied my stamps, found a mail box and dropped it in. The package was re-delivered, the very next day, back to me at my home address.... with an official illegal package warning sticker!
Apparently, this new ruling went into effect the very Monday that I mailed my first package and Homeland Security was hot on my illegal activity trail! Did that deter me? No, it did not! I hot footed it back down there, pleaded guilty and tried mailing it....this time by handing it to a real person.... and not just dropping it in the box.
All they did was re-stamp it and throw into the chute. No declaration or searching of the contents, no checking for flammable liquids or illegal fruit and no drug sniffing dogs. They simply tossed it in....just as I had....only I had stamped them with my own stamps, and not theirs.
Did I let my unfortunate illegal activity and its consequences deter me? I certainly did not! I went home to create more gifts....only these I made sure weighed under 13 ounces and/or I brought them to the Post Official to be mailed "officially."
I mailed one gift as a thank you for a gift that I had received previously (Paula and her Crazy Woman Sox) one just for the fun (Finn and her blogaversary and encouragement for my hopping on board her Orphan Train )and several as part of the Pay It Forward challenge... ...Debi and Terry, thank you so much for joining me!
And if you are wondering what I look like...I should be on a Post Office poster.... near you.... any time soon! :)
6 comments:
Thanks for the information. I have packages ready to go out this week, guess I will have to make a trip to the P.O.
The U.S. Postal Service has a contract with FedEx to deliver mail and FedEx wants this level of security so the USPS has to comply. They just want physically see the person sending the package(s).
I mailed an envelope today in the drive-by mailbox at the post office and there was a sticker announcing that but I wasn't clear on what the meaning was. Thanks for explaining. Now I need a way to determinee if I exceed 13 oz.
I had no idea about that new rule - thanks for the heads up! I would have probably been next, because I've done that plenty of times.
You sound like a giving person, and it was fun and inspiring to hear about your quilting projects. Did your mom or grandmother quilt, or is this something you've taken up yourself? What a worthy cause, and imagine all the people you're helping. Wonderful.
Heehee, I'm building up that blackmailing file. Thanks for the ammunition!
Thanks for the heads up for the totally unnecessary rule that has been instituted. Since I usually go in for packages anyway it shouldn't be a problem -- but, geesh!
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