First, let me announce, I am now up to 28 photo packages mailed. Each one is very exciting.
I have been using the kiosk at the post office, after hours, for almost all my mailing needs for the last couple years. I have mailed a lot of things since March 2020.
Several Saturdays ago, I had two packages to mail that needed checked out by a clerk. I had a box going to Sweden which required a customs form. I had a box going book rate to a library (yearbook donation post coming soon). I could not do either of those at the kiosk.
That day, I had three envelopes going also. These 3 were envelopes I normally would do at the kiosk, but since I was going IN anyway, I took them all to the counter. One was half size manilla filled with photos, one was a greeting card size full of photos, and one was an empty square notecard in a square envelope.
I put a stamp on the square one, at home, because it was not heavy.
When I got to the counter at the post office I commented one already had the postage and the rest needed weighed/calculated.
The post office clerk said the square one needed more postage because it was square. Evidently, square, regardless of the size, must be hand sorted, they get caught/destroyed in the machine/reader/sorter.
So I paid for 30 cents more postage on the square one. He processed the rest of my things.
I went home and collected all my square envelopes and gave them to a friend who uses them for scrapbooking.
Very interestingly, later that same day I was at a bookstore, having them buy back old computer games, and I browsed in the close-out notecard section while I waited. A shocking number of the close out notecards were undersized and/or square. (I found cute notecards, 3.5”x5”, and got them for youngest with my store credit. I try to use store credit immediately.)
I am sure I have used square envelopes in the past, with no extra postage, and now I wonder if they ever made it to their destinations.
