Can You Mail It?

Thanks, But No Thanks.

In our younger, more roguish days, we used to write a weekly column for this site called “Can You Mail It?” in which, as the name implies, we’d test the limits of the USPS by sending all kinds of crazy shit through the mail — like, for instance, an unwrapped pack of hotdogs.

Each week, as our success rate continued to soar, we grew increasingly emboldened, becoming more blatant about breaking the post office’s rules for what they allow.

And, still, they didn’t give a shit.

Can you mail a McDonald’s cheeseburger with a stamp on the wrapper? Yup! How about a clear plastic baggie very obviously filled with used syringes? Absolutely! What about baggies filled with human hair or seemingly used condoms? Pretty gross, but no problem.

Eventually, we gave up with the concept because it turned out you can mail pretty much anything, no matter how it is packaged, so long as you affix enough postage to it somewhere. You so crazy, USPS!

Except, well, it turns out that’s not quite true. Nearly four years after thinking we had moved on from our little experiment, we finally found the one thing that you cannot mail — and it’s something you’d never suspect in a million years!

Wanna guess what it is?

It’s OK, we’ll wait.

Anything?

Aw, man, you give up?

OK, so here it is: The one thing our post master has ever rejected to half court is an actual thank you card purchased from the thank you card store with actual U.S. currency. We even put a stamp on it and everything!

So what was their beef? Our cute little letter only measured 4-inches by 4-inches, and the USPS tells us now that they require envelopes to be 3-1/2 inches by 5-inches long and “rectangular in shape.” Who knew?!?! Letters that don’t live up to these standards, they say, are “not accepted because they can jam mail-processing machines, slow down service, and damage other mail.”

I guess that’s somehow different than the packet of synthetic urine or the can of tomato paste we successfully mailed? Seems to be.

A bizarre ending to an even more bizarre premise, I suppose.