Going Postal — Safety and Hygiene

Earlier today I had a chat with my mailman about something I'd read recently somewhere, about how crackheads were now driving around nice parts of town looking for mailboxes with the flags raised to identify outgoing items, then stealing the contents to obtain credit card, bank account and social security numbers, names, addresses, telephone numbers, all the stuff you need in order to successfully impersonate someone online to gain access to their finances.

Anyhow, the mailman said that those fears are well founded.

He went on to tell me about several instances in the past several years where huge quantities of mail were found trashed in out of the way places, clearly having been stolen and riffled through.

And I live in a Podunk town in the middle of nowhere.

He said he would never leave outgoing mail in his box, flag up or down.

Rather, he said, take the trouble to find a good old-fashioned mailbox in the neighborhood and use that.

Good incentive for me to go running: the nearest mailbox is about a mile away from my house, halfway to my turnaround point.

Turning to a happier subject, let's address hygiene — specifically, the postal version.

Here is how you practice good postal hygiene:

• Print all names and addresses in capital letters

• Use no punctuation of any kind

• Use only the two-letter official state name abbreviations — MS not Miss.

• Use the nine-character Zip Code when possible

Following the guidelines above enables the machines that do the majority of initial mail routing and sorting to more accurately match what you've put on the envelope with their computerized character recognition memories and direct your mail to its intended destination.
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Addendum Tuesday, August 15 at 4:55 p.m.

Chuck just commented on this post and asked, "How do you figure out the 9-character Zip Code? 5-character Zip Code is as far as I get."

Excellent question.

The USPS website offers a 9-character Zip Code finder right here.

Thanks, Chuck!