Bring back Pony Express!

I have just returned from the Post Office.
WOW! What an eye-opener that was!

Having been a collector of vintage postcards
for many years, I have become a little
familiar with the progress of the Post Office.
Of cards alone, I really enjoy looking at
them, reading the used ones, looking at the
many different postmarks, etc.

It has amazed me from day one, to see a
postcard with a postmark from an office
located somewhere in Massachessetts and
dated, say July 23, 1909, and also
have the receiving Post Office postmarking
the same card and located in Chicago with
a receiving date of July 24, 1909. One day
later.
It amazes me because, too often this happens;
an office with whom my company deals and is
located about 10 miles further east of us,
can send us a letter and it will show up six
days from the day it was sent!

Today's eye-opener was the reverse of a
musical crescendo. It's like everything you
know about a subject has suddenly crashed
down all around you, has been wiped out
and that knowledge no longer exists!
I had a small box to mail to a town 291
miles due west of my city.
The box weighed 2 pounds, 9.11 ounces.
I wanted to send the box Parcel Post,
normally the cheapest way to send a parcel
because it generally takes longer, i.e.,
it isn't speeded along like a letter.
To send Parcel Post, the cost was $4.11.
No insurance, no special handling.

Before totaling out, the clerk said that
she HAD to ADD a "NON-MACHINABLE PACKAGE"
amount of $1.65!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This added amount had a special key on
her machine. (This means she has the
option of hitting that key or not hitting
that key! Yes? Otherwise, it would be
automatically inserted, just as the
shipping price is. There is a special key
for adding an amount for insurance, or
confirmation.)
'It's something we have to start adding.'

The upshot of all of this is, to add the
$1.65 to $4.11 makes the total $5.76.
Now, just basic math tells me that this
is more than if I sent the package as
Priority Mail...$4.75. What I'm having
trouble with is, why not just make all
packages have a minimum of $4.75 no matter
where they are going instead of 'forcing'
someone to 'logically' pay the Priority
Mail amount? And no, she wasn't going
to back down. I would pay the $1.65 or
it wouldn't go.

I'll bet when it was first proposed to
'the powers that be' in the Post Office
that the machine should be purchased, the
reason given was because it would save
$1000's of dollars in salaries, annually.
But now, I get to pay a machine via a
"NON-MACHINABLE PACKAGE" TAX (and it is
essentially a tax, a -value added type of
tax), for a machine to process this box
and make sure it gets to its destination
carrying a PRIORITY MAIL sticker and treated
like any other package! And when a package
doesnt' get to its destination in 2 days?
Oh well, it's just another day at the
Post Office.

My packages will be going UPS from this
day forward.