A Book I Purchased is Currently on a North American Post Office Tour Courtesy of the USPS.

[scloyd]

First, let me start by saying I'm not complaining. I actually think this is funny.

I purchased a new Maigret book for $7.00 (free shipping) on ebay. In the past eleven days the book has traveled from Hot Springs AR to Memphis TN to Chicago (1 hour from my house), to Des Moines IA to Chicago again to Billings MT and is currently in transit to it's next destination.

It's a cheap paperback book and I can wait, I have others to read...it's amusing. If this was a pipe/tobacco or anything else of some value, I wouldn't be laughing.

 

[mso489]

Someone at the P.O. read the book and decided it lacked only travel experience, so in order to be sure your received full value from a thoroughly well-traveled book, he put a special stamp on it, "Kerouac Route," and it will arrive with an appropriate air of having lived and seen the world.

 

[scloyd]

Someone at the P.O. read the book and decided it lacked only travel experience, so in order to be sure your received full value from a thoroughly well-traveled book, he put a special stamp on it, "Kerouac Route," and it will arrive with an appropriate air of having lived and seen the world.

My thought was that maybe this book is so good that the post office is passing it around so they can all read it. I just hope they don't dog ear the pages...use a bookmark please.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Makes you wondered if someone scribbled the zip code in a way that's making it hard to read by man, woman or machine? Or they are just messing with you - "Hey, Mr. Mystery fan, solve this!"

 

[captainsousie]

I bet the problem is that you ordered the "book tour" edition. It's got to complete the tour before it gets to you. Always have to read the full description when buying on eBay...

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

It is common to see this if following tracking from eBay purchases.

 

[Bowlsmoker67]

That seems to happen alot lately

 

[mikethompson]

Which do you think will happen first Scott? You receiving your book or Javan receiving his secret Santa package?

 

[captainsousie]

Which do you think will happen first Scott? You receiving your book or Javan receiving his secret Santa package?

That's like a Matrix level question man.

 

[Servant King]

That's like a Matrix level question man.

There is no package... ?

Edit: unless it's a package full of spoons. In which case, I retract my statement.

 

[keith929]

Thank God for people who still read books !

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Sounds like it could be the lost Georges Simenon novel:

Maigret in Hot Springs, Memphis, Chicago, Des Moines, Chicago again, Billings, and Beyond

 

[5star]

This has been happening a Lot with our packages lately. An item purchased from a company in the adjoining state (Pac NW) sent to the East Coast of the US and now is stuck somewhere outside of Chicago.
I wonder if liberalized marijuana laws have something to do with this phenomenon.

 

[anotherbob]

last time that happened with a package of mine. Well when I got the package and saw how poorly the label had been done and how illegible it was, well it made me wonder if the post office has some psychics employed. Seriously I had to open the package to see if it was the one I had ordered or something else entirely because the seller really soiled the bed with that label.

 

[anotherbob]

This has been happening a Lot with our packages lately. An item purchased from a company in the adjoining state (Pac NW) sent to the East Coast of the US and now is stuck somewhere outside of Chicago.
I wonder if liberalized marijuana laws have something to do with this phenomenon.

nope has to do in many cases with very complex logistics. With incredibly large volumes of individual pieces it can actually be cheaper and less resource and labor intensive to move a package in a way to doesn't make sense from the stand point of a single package. I know it sounds crazy but the simplest explanation to get the basic idea it's cheaper to have a full truck drive a longer distance then to have many partially filled trucks all drive the same distance. It's a strange world we live in where we can have machine calculate things in a way that out stretches our complex primate brains.

 

[captainsousie]

This has been happening a Lot with our packages lately. An item purchased from a company in the adjoining state (Pac NW) sent to the East Coast of the US and now is stuck somewhere outside of Chicago.
I wonder if liberalized marijuana laws have something to do with this phenomenon.

Duuude, that's like, your opinion man. I can smoke as much as I want and...what was the question again? (The above is an accurate representation of about half of the people I work with)

 

[seanv]

nope has to do in many cases with very complex logistics. With incredibly large volumes of individual pieces it can actually be cheaper and less resource and labor intensive to move a package in a way to doesn't make sense from the stand point of a single package. I know it sounds crazy but the simplest explanation to get the basic idea it's cheaper to have a full truck drive a longer distance then to have many partially filled trucks all drive the same distance. It's a strange world we live in where we can have machine calculate things in a way that out stretches our complex primate brains.

You are right. I've spent my entire working life in transportation and it is a complex and at times backwards business.

 

[anotherbob]

You are right. I've spent my entire working life in transportation and it is a complex and at times backwards business.

and it ads up. When you crunch the numbers money and resources are saved. And over all more things get there on time then if you went by what makes sense per package.

 

[scloyd]

UPDATE*
The book arrived today. The ebay seller reused a plastic shipping envelope and didn't remove the old USPS shipping label with a Montana address. My address was on one side of the envelope and a Montana address was on the other side...two shipping UPC codes.
Mystery solved.

 

[Servant King]

UPDATE*
The book arrived today. The ebay seller reused a plastic shipping envelope and didn't remove the old USPS shipping label with a Montana address. My address was on one side of the envelope and a Montana address was on the other side...two shipping UPC codes.
Mystery solved.

Wow. That's a pretty asinine oversight there. At least you didn't receive a can of tobacco and they "forgot" to remove the McClelland label pasted on top of the true label (Velvet).

Moral of the story: always double check everything, people!