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Western Union wants you to believe that their way is the best way to
send money, but they're wrong, as you can see above.
I attached a label and a 33-cent stamp to this dollar bill and
dropped it into a mailbox. Two days later it got delivered just fine.
Update of December 17, 2001:
A week ago I decided to mess with the post office again. It's hard to tell from the scan of the envelope below, as I got it back
today, what
happened, so I'll tell you.
First, I addressed this envelope with nothing more
than the full, nine-digit ZIP code. That's the important part of this
whole silly experiment.
I wanted to see whether the USPS could deliver a
first-class mailpiece (their term) with nothing more than a unique ZIP
code to go on.
The "address" I gave was 66201-0347, which
you can see under
the huge, handwritten capital B. I included no other information
whatsoever as to where the envelope should be mailed, and in fact it was
empty.
Then I applied a 34-cent stamp and deposited it in a
mailbox.
It got sprayed with a bar code at the bottom
that further identified it as destined for 66201-0347. You can't see
that bar code because it's covered with a yellow sticker redirecting the
mail to the correct street address.
The point is they succeeded perfectly. It took awhile,
but they did it. The US Postal Service correctly delivered a
first-class mailpiece whose envelope showed only a unique ZIP code.
I suppose the next test is whether they can deliver an envelope with only a bar code on it.
For an example of the opposite of this see here.
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