Literacy = Terrorism

Well, it was only a matter of time. Through ignorance and not giving two shits, we've managed to end up on the postal terrorist watch list. Seriously.

We sent a bunch of raffle tickets to an older board member in her 70s to work on, a little fundraiser of ours. We sent a lot of tickets. We put it in a brown envelope, I guess it was about 6X9, and put postage on it. Not enough, it turns out, but that was the least of our troubles. We stuck it in the mail with everything else. We-ell, we got a giant summons to come to the post office the very next day. ASAP. We weren't pleased anyway, as we've been feuding with the P.O. over their inability to deliver mail that's clearly marked. We can't help it that this state has some seriously weird addresses. So perhaps we came in with a bit of an attitude. Let's assume we did.

Apparently, we violated the 13 oz. rule. Have no idea what it is? Neither did we. But apparently it went into effect at the end of last month. If we used metered mail, we wouldn't have had the problem; but to get something that meters your mail costs quite a bit a month, at least for our little organization. So we use stamps. Apparently you can't put stamps on something that's over 13 ounces anymore. You can buy something off of the internet to slap on it, or you can present it to a postal person. Director/Buddy, who is depressingly pro-America sometimes, went ballistic on the poor postal lady over the new rule. It's been a rough week at the office.

But now, we're officially labeled. And if there is one thing we hate as workers with people with disabilities, it's a goddamn label. We're officially 13 oz. terrorists. We now have to have any potentially 13 oz. plus items personally handed over. Not to be inspected, mind you, but just to be handed over. After the giant fit ended, they offered to send the postal worker straight to the office, instead of making us drive in, contingent on us reporting whether we have any weighty packages or not. In a fit of "We'll fix them!!", Director/Buddy plans on calling every day to report that she thinks she might have a package, but she isn't sure yet, can't they send the girl on down anyway? Heh, heh, heh...

But seriously. What a dumb rule. What difference does it make if it's hand delivered, if you have no clue what's inside of it??

We're on the watch list for 90 days. That's the maximum period, sort of like a restraining order, in case you're wondering how much attitude was actually displayed.

-- Virgil