Going Postal

I'm looking over my shoulder, cowering as I write this. I'm listening to every creak in the floorboards, every moan in the walls. Call me paranoid, but I think someone would very much like to put "a world of hurt" on me. I think my postal carrier wants to kill me.

I didn't see him this afternoon, but an ominous sense of foreboding overcame me today when I went out to pick up the mail. The little tag with attached key was in my slot, the one that says "package too large to fit in box."

I unlocked Compartment A with the key provided and was surprized to see a large package contained within. I reached for it, but it wouldn't budge. I grabbed it with both hands, but it held firm. Had some fiend picked the lock and then mischievously applied superglue along its bottom side? Who could have such a devilish sense of humor to devise such a prank?

Determined, I flexed my knees, grabbed the package and jerked with all my strength. It flew out - in slow motion of course, it's not like I'm Arnold Schwartzenegger - and hit me in the face, knocking off my glasses. My cat-like reflexes triggered, I performed a pirouette with the balletic grace of a 58-year-old Mikhail Baryshnikov, catching my reader's on my forearm before they could fall to the ground.

Balancing the damned heavy package, I somehow managed to shift it to one arm, enabling me to grab and re-don my glasses. I was cursing by this time, under my breath of course so as not to offend the sensibilities of any bluehairs wandering nearby, and slowly progressed back to my apartment. Navigating the steps carrying a package with the equivalent weight of a black dwarf star ensconced within is not an experience I want to repeat.

So I got to my bathroom scales and gingerly placed the box upon it. Immediately the needle sprang furiously into action and charged towards 70 pounds, where it proceeded to quiver tremulously. Even the scales were intimidated by this cardboard creature! As soon as the weight was revealed, I gained a clue as to what the contents were.

It was my box of pennies from Kurr. One hundred dollars face value. Since each copper penny minted before 1982 weighs 3.1 grams and there are approximately 147 pennies to the pound; we're talking nearly 68 pounds of bullion; 10,000 pennies lurking inside that box, waiting with evil intent, like an IED device booby-trapped to jettison deadly copper shrapnel in all directions. I haven't opened the package yet, after I've let it soak in the bathtub overnight I'll call in the bomb squad. Maybe then I'll feel safe.

I'm too old for this crap. Copper has to go up. It needs to at least double in price so that one can send a box half the size that contains the same value, but at half the weight. If that were to happen, Kurr could send me fifty dollars face value of pennies, but they would weigh only 34 pounds. That would be manageable. Of course, try convincing my carrier of that.

Is it a subtle form of ageism to order packages that only the young and the healthy (no, that's not a pilot for a soap opera) can handle? Why don't I ask my postal carrier? Here he comes now. Oh, crap... he's whistling the theme music from Jaws! I must really think copper is going to go way up in value to go through all this!




The author is certain that copper pennies represent an incredible investment opportunity and further purchases from Kurr will just add to his stockpile.