The mail sometimes brings strange things

Dec. 30—I have some strange things on the shelf above my desk.

Most of it came from 1997, when I experimented with the post office.

The woman who sorts the mail paged me over the public address system one morning that summer.

I knew it had to be something good.

When I got there, she was pointing toward the mail crate.

"Get it out," she said. "I'm not touching it."

I wasn't sure which "it" she was talking about.

The diaper with the Bugs Bunny stamps.

Or something brown in a flat plastic bag.

The week before, amazed that the Postal Service had delivered "a dozen dried-out, hairy pigs' ears addressed like individual fleshy postcards to ear-biting boxer Mike Tyson" — as The Associated Press put it — I suggested that readers see what they could send me.

After all, a postal worker in Phoenix had told the AP, "As long as it's not over 108 inches in length and girth and under 70 pounds and the postage is good, we'll try to deliver it."

That leaves a lot of room for weirdness.

So I suggested that we all have a little fun and see just what we could mail.

And I'd be the guinea pig.

After all, I'm not the one who has to stick his hand in our mailbox.

"See what you can send me," I wrote. "It doesn't count if you package it. Just carry it down to the post office. Get them to slap a stamp directly on it. And mail it to me."

A few days later, I found a popcorn bucket — empty, unfortunately — from Malco Theatres, sitting on my desk with two 32-cent flag stamps stuck to the bottom.

And it wasn't even bent at all.

Here was a mint-condition popcorn bucket that had been delivered for a mere 64 cents.

The postal folks did excellent work.

It's still sitting on my shelf almost a quarter century later.

Then, the diaper came.

It was held together with teddy bear tape.

And there were two 32-cent Bugs Bunny stamps in the corner.

And there was something in it.

No, not that.

A note that said, "What are you looking in here for?"

And then there was the plastic bag that was causing such commotion in the mailroom.

"It's a rat skin," the woman shuddered, as she continued pointing at it.

And, by George, it was.

There were the little ears.

And the little eye holes.

"Who would skin a rat?" people asked.

And then someone asked, "Do you think you'll get the rest of it tomorrow?"

It was really a rat rug, made in biology class at Catholic High, where rat skinning was apparently a requirement.

And the woman who sent it wanted it back when I was through with it.

By the way, back then, it cost 43 cents to mail a rat rug. And the post office put it in a little plastic bag for you.

And then, there's the Field chili log that was nailed to a board and presented to me years ago.

But that's another story.

Keith Lawrence, 270-691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com.