Another Installment of Diogenes' Public Service Educational Series: #348

Note: Your Blog Editrix, Who Loves Each and Everyone of You, believes in the importance of an informed citizenry and prides herself knowing her readers are the most inquisitive, most intelligent and best looking of all the internet because they read DMF.  So she brings you more info that, she seriously doubts, will actually enhance your life. But, you never know. It maybe could save you from long term captivity on a derelict Chinese freighter or Brazilian massage parlor or something. Hey it could happen!  

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Did you know you can mail potatoes without a container? This delightful information comes from the USPS's Postal Facts page.  As with coconuts, one may mail potatoes simply by writing the destination on the potato, weighing the potato, then paying the appropriate postage for said potato and it can be shipped as-is.  The potato will then be conveyed thence to its destination by the hardworking men and women of the United States Postal Service.

Let someone know they are special. Send a tater! Or an SOS. 

Bonus Knowledge From the Annals of Improbable Research - JULY 9, 1988: 

"The maximum weight of the United States Postal Service's small flat-rate box is 70 pounds. Paul Sherman noticed that given that the box is only 75 cubic inches, " it is physically impossible to exceed the 70-pound domestic weight limit for a small flat rate box," even if you filled it with the heaviest element known to man."

What is the cheapest way to get 6,000 concrete blocks and 4,600 bags of cement to a remote Eskimo village? Mail them.

"Sam Krogstad, a construction supplier in Anchorage, sent the individually addressed blocks (postage: $4.33 each) and bags ($4.27) about 700 miles north to Wainwright, where they were to be used to build a small harbor on the Arctic Ocean. Krogstad’s bill for stamps was about $45,000, less than what other shippers would charge. The Postal Service was not pleased about the shipment, which cost about $180,000 to deliver by truck and plane. But the agency could find nothing illegal about Krogstad’s parcels, which weigh a few pounds less than the 70 lb. maximum for regular mail."

You're welcome for the new brain wrinkle.