Catpaw – diary of an angry cat

On the advice of a reader, I popped over to the US Postal Services site to peek at the list of no nos for mailing stuff. Blogger Roufa Tav Gosou & Mimi Lass were right! It looks like the Postal Service have experienced a few Monty Python moments of their own. The mind shutters at why USPS found it necessary to write this stuff down, but you and I both know they had to. Humanity worries me.

Here are my favourites:

To Canada:

• Used or secondhand hives or bee supplies. – Damned, guess I can’t send those used bee hives. How the hell do you pack a bee hive? Are there special cone shaped boxes just for them?
• Perishable infectious biological substances – oh how tragic it is that this even needs to be said, let alone put down on paper.
• Reproductions of Canadian postage stamps unless printed in publications in black and white only and with a defacing line drawn across each reproduction. – Holy Cats! I never knew this one! This means the new stamp catalogues that are now in full colour are illegal?! I collect stamps and never realised, when I ordered the catalogue from that dealer in the states, I was asking him to break the law. Geez! Loosen up!
• Oleomargarine and other butter substitutes, including altered or renovated butter – renovated butter? I don’t even want to know what that is. Renovated butter.. its fun just to say it. Still don’t know what it is, but it sure sounds like something Monty Python would think up. “We’ve just renovated our butter suite so you have somewhere to eat all that spam with your dead parrot.”
• Prison-made goods being sold or intended for sale by a person or firm – yup a big demand for that here in the frozen north. And why prohibit them.
• Commercial tags of metal – could someone explain this one to me? Can I have them made of renovated butter instead? Let me look, nope, renovated butter isn’t allowed either.
• Banknotes valued at $100 or more must be put up in a compact package and securely tied with strong twine before wrapping. The wrapper must be linen or other strong, woven material, linen lined paper, or two thicknesses of strong kraft paper. After wrapping, the package must be again securely tied or stitched and sealed at the points of closing – I love the part about the strong twine. I guess twist ties are out. Does it have to be strong? How about weak twine?

To Cape Verde and many other countries:

• You can’t send Radioactive materials – well that should be obvious to everyone. Obviously if you are up to nefarious deeds (I’ve been looking for a reason to use the word nefarious) this embargo would put a crimp in your day.

To Chad:

• plums not bearing in large type the mark of origin or contained in tins weighing more than 1 kg. – what do they have against little plums? Why single out plums?

To China:

• Used clothing and bedding – Fussy aren’t they.

To Comoros:

• Newspapers, publications, and works that may jeopardize the Moslem religion or security of the state. – the typo is from the USPS postal site! And this prohibition can be interpreted to cover everything from current news to winnie the poo shows.
• Weapons and ammunitions of war – we really are a scary species.

Costa Rica:

• Blank Invoices – ????
• Dual-graduation feeding bottles – again with the multiple question marks ????

Ivory Coast:

• Daggers, sword-canes, brass knuckles, blackjacks, and other secret weapons; firing caps; and loaded metal cartridges – Oh shucks there goes my side business in importing robbery weapons. Blackjacks and brass knuckles were so high on my list of exportable items.
• Weights and measures not of the decimal system – non decimal weights are so bad they have to prohibit them being mailed? Can I UPS them instead?

Cyprus:

• Postcards of private manufacture having illustrated designs not previously approved by the Cyprus Post Office – this was obviously written before the advent of home printers that can create postcards of Fluffy and Fido. I make my own post cards, guess I won’t be sending them to Cyprus. Why or why prohibit this? Are they such a threat?
• Leeches and silkworms – dunno, something about this makes me giggle. What a disaster it would be to send leeches in a puff pack and have a heavy handed postal worker squish it.

Denmark:

• Human remains – ohhh ick ohhh
• Dried or powdered milk, and food mixtures containing it – Well I don’t like powered milk either.

Ecuador:

• All maps showing the territory of Ecuador with incorrect boundaries – a bit touchy. Wonder what the history behind that is. I’ll have to look that up.
• So-called “Panama” and “Mocora” hats and the straw used for making them – I am sure there is a perfectly logical reason for this, other than the officials in Ecuador have very fine taste!
• Preparations for erasing ink and handwriting – shucks there goes my budding spy network
• Leather shoes in general; cloth and rubber shoes – just admit it, shoes in generally are forbidden.
• Uncanceled postage stamps in ordinary mail – even to stamp collectors? I sent some mint stamps to Ecuador before, uncanceled, does this mean I’ve broken an international law?
• Unrefined salt – only unrefined?

France:

• Funeral urns – filled or empty? They don’t specify. Now I’m curious.

Republic of Georgia:

• Parasites, along with leeches and silkworms oh and bees – what’s with this? Have so many people tried to send squishy creatures through the mail it became a problem?
• Tear gas, nerve gas, and weapons for their use – sigh.. again… just sigh…

Germany:

• Pulverized coca beans – Just lightly smack them up a bit, just so they aren’t pulverized it will be okay

Great Britain and Northern Ireland

• Goods made in foreign prisons, except those imported for a non-commercial purpose or of a kind not manufactured in the UK. – again with the prisons! What is this discrimination?
• Horror comics and matrices – what’s a matrice and why are the Brits afraid of them? And just why are matrices combined with horror comics. What is the connection? Is this some sort of international conspiracy the US Homeland Security folks should investigate?

Greece:

• Aluminum foil for tobacco manufacturing – now that is specific

Guatemala

• Gardenia plants and seeds – I’m sure this has to do with importation of plant matter but to single out a particular plant means they must have had a whole lot of trouble with roving bands of gardenias.
• Police whistles – all other whistles are okay, just no police whistles
• Powder of all kinds – no baby powder for you! Hey!This must include powered milk too.

The list goes on and on. I must admit, I’m having more fun than any person should have with such a list of paperwork. I could go on for pages but I’ll spare you. Go find your own fun.

Thanks Banana for the tip.

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