It ain’t heavy, it’s my $13.95 flat-rate package
Published 11:22 pm Sunday, August 9, 2009
Consumer reporting is a heavy responsibility.
In this case, about 25 pounds worth.
When I am watching my favorite reality TV shows such as “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” “Big Brother” and “The Real World: Cancun,” I’ve been annoyed by incessant commercials about U.S. Postal Service flat-rate boxes.
Supposedly you can mail up to 70 pounds per box — for the same price as mailing a single Q-Tip.
Is this a good bargain? The agency apparently needs revenue. It’s been whining about losing money this year. To help get out of the red, it will sell stamps showing big turkeys for Thanksgiving.
I am one of those folks who wait in line for half an hour to buy “pretty” stamps.
Gotta get that turkey to move along my Visa bill.
When we mail something weighty, we often check out prices at FedEx, UPS and the post office to get a good deal. As a test, I would put something heavy in a post office flat-rate container and explore various shipping costs.
I picked up one of the boxes, big enough to pack a Costco-size apple pie, and called my husband at home.
“Do we have any bricks?”
He didn’t think so.
“Never mind, I’ve got a better idea,” I said.
I dropped by Gold’s Gym in Everett. Did they have something heavy, but not bulky, they could loan me?
Manager Richard Wacker never blinked. He walked to a back room, returned with a 25-pound weight plate and plopped it into my empty post office box.
A perfect fit.
And I’m not the first person to borrow the chipped weight plate that slides on the end of a dumbbell bar.
“You can use it to moor a boat,” Wacker said. “You know, put a chain through it, like an anchor.”
Wacker understood I was going to mail the weight to my home in Mill Creek, then I would bring it back.
He didn’t look at me in an odd way or anything.
My next stop was Everett Pack-Man, where owner Monica Lentz hefted the box onto a countertop scale.
To mail it 12 miles was a good deal for $13.95, because to send it by FedEx would have been $15.38, and by UPS $15.76.
What about sending it to Poughkeepsie, N.Y.?
Now that is where the post office rocks.
To send 25 pounds to New York, as we have established, would be $13.95 via the post office flat-rate box.
It would be $40.87 by FedEx and $41.89 by UPS.
“The flat rates are beneficial if you are sending something heavy a long distance,” Lentz said.
The postal deal is economical but there is a reason, she said, to send packages via UPS or FedEx.
“You are assured of safe delivery and tracking,” Lentz said.
Lentz noticed my age and kindly asked if I needed help carrying the box back to my car. I tried to look like it was no sweat and did it myself. I still had to carry it into the post office, where I rested the package on a glass display case to wait my turn.
The glass creaked like an ice cube right before it shatters in a glass of warm water.
(Reminder to self: Don’t set toddlers on the counter.)
Ushered to a clerk, I muscled the box to his hands.
“Bricks?” he said. “Feels like a bowling ball.”
Lips sealed, I wondered if I would have to report the innards of the package.
Nope.
I handed over $13.95.
Slick.
Using my cell phone, I called my husband to say he should expect to receive a 25-pound package on our doorstep the next day.
“Don’t open it,” I instructed. “I have to cart it back to Everett.”
Used to my shenanigans after 35 years, he doesn’t ask questions.
And the USPS continued to impress me.
When the box arrived, only one corner was smashed.
Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.
