If you ever wondered where a show like Seinfeld gathered

ideas for their situations....wonder no more.  Everyday

life.  Allow me to share what I just encountered.  I

received a card in my mailbox at home that I had something

to pick up at the post office.  O.K. I go uptown on my lunch

hour to the post office.  I drive around for a while to find

a parking space.  I go in and stand in line for about 10

minutes or so while the fellow ahead of me completes a

complicated transaction.  I give the card to the nice postal

lady.  She comes back with a letter size yellow envelope

that looked just like one I had sent just the other day. 

The envelope contained 50 single page flyers about our china

show that were requested by a museum in

Indianapolis.

      I had used the address provided by the museum and took it to the

post office and they placed the $2.96 postage on it for me. 

Now I am not that far from

Indianapolis

mind you.  Anyway

the nice postal lady says that the envelope has $2.96

postage due.  I point out the obvious that there is a $2.96

meter label on the envelope.  She goes back and checks and

returns to tell me the envelope could not be delivered.  She

said she did not know why but they could not deliver it.  I

then said O.K. and reached for

the envelope.....No chance!  She grabs it back and tells me

I have to pay $2.96 to get it back because it had been sent

parcel post and

that does not provide return postage.  So just to make sure

I understand it right I repeat to her that I must pay an

additional $2.96 to get the envelope back.  Then pay another

$2.96 to send it out again but we still do not know why they

could not deliver it so it may come back to me again for

another $2.96 in return postage. Can you begin to see the train wreck coming.... Now I may just be a hilljack from

Indiana

but $11.84 to mail $1.00 worth of paper 30 miles

seemed a little bit like intentionally hittin' your thumb

with a hammer.  I then look at the postal lady and say "you

can just......throw it away".  (You thought I was going to

tell her something more expletive didn't you).  She sort of

stuttered and I thought  she was going to tell me I still

owed $2.96 so I quickly turned around to see this fellow

standing behind me, ashen faced holding this big box.  I look at him and tell him "You're next!".  He swallows hard

and says in a trembling voice..."Oh my I'm sending this box

overseas..."  As I head for the door I holler back at

him "You still have time to change your mind."  Ain't free

enterprise wonderful?  And real life is funnier than any

fiction and don't ever wonder why it costs 37 cents to mail

a letter.  You are paying for efficiency.

From down on the farm with rural "free" delivery (RFD) in

Indiana

(c) 2013 Ellen Wilson-Pruitt