99% Invisible - 183- Dead Letter Office

Episode Date: September 30, 2015

When something is lost in the mail, it feels like it has disappeared into the ether, like it was sucked into a black hole, like it no longer exists. But, it turns out, a lot of the mail we think … Continue reading →

This is 99% Indusible. I'm Roman Mars. If today you pitched me the idea of the US Postal Service, there would be no way you could convince me that it could actually work. I mean, it's not perfect as it is, but the fact that you can put a 49 cent sticker on an envelope and have someone deliver it across the country in two days is amazing. Just take a second to imagine all the systems that have to work together to pull that off. So let's stipulate postal services around the world are pretty great, but with any complex design system there are failures that occur.

Mail that never makes it to its destination and can't be returned to the center. And it's into this rabbit hole that producer Samara Fremark fell when she began searching for all the lost male. Once upon a time, I lost something in the male. Maybe this has happened to you. It probably has happened to you. It probably has happened to you. But what makes my story different is that I went looking for what I lost. So you didn't come here?

There was body. And the place I ended up was so strange, so dreamlike. Something inside the box moving. My name is Joanne Smith. But let me back up a bit. It was 2007, August. I was moving from Minnesota to Michigan to start grad school. I packed whatever couldn't fit into my station wagon into three cardboard boxes and shipped

them parcel rate, books mostly. The first box arrived at the leisurely pace the book's shipped parcel rate usually do. And then I waited for weeks. The second box never showed, though when I say that it never showed, I mean that most of the box never showed. A piece of it eventually did arrive. It came in a large envelope, a neat rectangle of cardboard, the box top where I had ridden my address. Someone had taken a razor and very carefully sliced it off the box. And in close note on Postal

Service Letterhead informed me that my address label had become detached from my box. And so I was thrilled when I came home one day, months later, and found my third box waiting for me on my doorstep. My lost box was here. But something about the box was different. It had been torn apart and then lashed back together with plastic zip ties. When I cut it open, the cookbooks I had carefully packed were in disarray. My four-inch thick hardcovered joy of cooking had been torn apart down the spine. Like a weightlifter, I used it for some feat of strength. The two halves were sandwiched around a cookbook I had never seen before.

Someone else's copy of Sophia Lorenz' Recipes and Memories. Sophia leared at me from the cover. Her cleavage was distracting. I was perplexed. I told my mother about it. Oh yeah, she said. that's happened to me too. She had shipped a box of books home from Europe and when she opened it, this box was filled with other people's things, all from different countries.

It had a Bible that was in Russian, a magazine from, I think Germany. It had some candy from the Netherlands. So it was like everyone's European vacation was in your box. from, I think Germany, it had some candy from the Netherlands. So it was like everyone's European vacation was in your box? Well, I was just astounded. My friend Helen had mailed some boxes and she had a story too. When I got the boxes open, they looked like they had been put in a washing machine and then dried. Like the boxes were so mutilated.

And when I opened them, the box with all the food magazines, half of the issues were taken out. The rest of the boxes were all cookbook boxes, all like vintage cookbooks. And in place of that, they had put all of these southern home, southern home living whatever cookbooks from the 1980s in boxes, deviled eggs on the cover. As though that was like a reparation for my loss. Helen and my mom shrugged this off and they let things go, but it nagged at me.

Who was reading my books? Who's copy of recipes and memories was guiding me through tiramisu? And just who had switched them? Now if you ask enough questions like that, you'll find yourself in Atlanta on a day so hot the pavement shimmers. Driving past the Coca-Cola Museum, past the world's largest aquarium, past the CNN headquarters, and finally turning down the service road and pulling up in front of a non-descript suburban warehouse directly across from Six Flags amusement park.

The mail recovery center. Where lost mail goes to be sorted, processed, and sent back to its rightful owner, or barring that, it's sold off. I walked up to the door for warehouse and opened it on. I bought an accessories opening bid $500. An auction. $6789, sold a pound of $151. 200 people lined up in folding chairs, waving paddles in the air. There's no live animals, there's no live weapons.

And in the back, bins upon bins, hundreds of bins of lost mail. Everything that Americans have ever stuffed into a mailbox and never seen again, all sorted by type. Bins of pillows, bins of tennis rackets, bins of coffee makers, bins of stuff you can't imagine anyone ever thought it was a good idea to mail. Bins of stuff you didn't know it was possible to mail, like tractor trailer tires. And all these bins being auctioned off by officials of the U.S. Postal Service. A middle aged man sporting faded jeans, a sweat stain to baseball cap, and a handlebar mustache came up behind me, jabbing at an auction list.

He was a buyer. My name's Ricky. And he was here with his wife Cindy. I mean, they got some stuff in here that's irreplaceable, like they got some vintage stuff in here from the 40s and the 50s. They've got one in there, it's got a live magazine with John F. Kennedy on it. Now how much does that work to somebody? To you, it wouldn't be worth nothing.

To me, I can remember the day he got killed. You know, so. You've got the buttons, Kennedy for president, some of those in the... I can remember the elections. So, you know, it was just according to who you are and how much is worth to you. So you've got apparel accessories, it's clothes, it's starting bed, $500. Cameras and accessories, starting bed, $2,000.

Ethnic items, $500. I don't think it's ethnic item. I don't know. So what do you do with all this stuff? I was the reseller of the thing we get. That's what this thing's about. They'll be people sitting out in the parking lot on eBay before they leave here. You're kidding. They're in their cars.

In their cars. They've got buyers waiting. Ricky and Cindy were hoping to get lucky today. As lucky as they got once, almost a decade ago, right after September 11th. We've got a whole tote of American flags. You could not buy American flag in the United States. Everything was gone. We ended up with American flag pens, American flags, everything. We had five boxes of McDonald's little arches with American flag on it.

McDonald's didn't even have them. So we would come out smelling like a rose on that one. And just then, Gordon Plyment swept out from behind the wheel. So we would come out smelling like a rose on that one. And just then, Gordon Plyment swept out from behind the wheel of a baby blue 1960 Cadillac. Heads turned, people whispered. Mr. Gordon was male recovery center royalty. He was 80 years old with a pink face, white hair, bright blue eyes. I swear he even twinkled. He didn't seem surprised when he saw my microphone.

It was almost like he was expecting me. Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. Is that where you're from? Yeah. You come all the way down here from Brooklyn, New York. Sort of. I've been on a road trip to the Pesmouth.

Oh. So you didn't come here specifically to find out about the pot? Wait, the pot? Yeah, Jay Lennon was the last Tuesday night. Of course he was. Mr. Gordon had been buying stuff here for 10 years. He'd take his bins home, unpack them, and resell the contents. At the last male recovery center auction,

he had bought a bin of paintings. One of them was especially pretty, an orchid in a vase. He tried to resell it at a different auction for $25, but no one was biting. So they put it back on my truck. And as they put it back on the truck, they tipped it and felt something inside the box moving. The frame was a box itself.

So one of the guys helping me took a screwdriver and took the back off of it. And inside was $5,000 worth of marijuana. Mr. Gordon and I sat and thought about what kind of person would send $5,000 worth of pot through the mail. And how that person must have felt when they heard about Mr. Gordon on Leno and whether they filed a claim for the painting or whether they were just relieved that the post office had lost it so absolutely that it couldn't be traced back to its original center. And then Mr. Gordon headed to the Florida bid. But first he looked deep into my eyes and he sang me a song for luck.

So lament to the face, amen, lovey. In addition to being a male recovery center celebrity, he also sings mariachi at a restaurant in Alpharetta, Georgia. You belong to my heart now and forever. And into this reverie walked Lionel Snow, the director of the center, and Michael Miles, postal service representative. Who escorted me out the door? Oh, we have to go outside.

Told me I was violating postal service policy. You just tell me why. Shoot. Mm-hmm. Postal policy. This is Postal Policy. Yeah, but why? Do you know why?

Well, you know, please. So I have to be like 50 feet from the center and let me across the parking lot. It is what we would clearly be prepared to talk to you about. I thought you were going to walk around in here, kind of get the ladle and see what's what. However, whatever kind of documentation that you're trying to do inside, that's where we run into a product. Okay, is it a security issue? It's security. It's a that's that's among all the issues, but yeah, security certainly is one of them. Is it because of, you know, people stuff is in there and they don't want to die? Not only that, that's not the critical issue.

The critical issue. The critical issue is something I don't want to discuss. I mean, there's things that have been there from the early 50s. There's bodies partially, ashes and stuff that's been there for years. We would like to get things back to customers, everything. But there's something that we're unable to. This sounded, well to be honest, it sounded troubling because if the Postal Service could accidentally sell $5,000 worth of marijuana to Gordon Clement, didn't that mean that they could accidentally auction off those human remains? Ashes, yeah.

Set a small woman and acid wash jeans with frazzled hair standing behind me. Her name was Jill. One part lady I know bought dishes and it had gray powder all over it. And when she finished unloading her dishes, there was all the pair of finality for somebody's memorial. It was actually somebody's ashes.

So that was funny. It was someone's ashes. Yes. On her plates? Yeah, it's all over because that was funny. It was someone's ashes. Yes. On her place? Yes, all over because it was in the bottom. I wandered around to the back of the building where postal officials were unloading bins with a forklift. Auction winners were queued up waiting to collect their purchases. One buyer was hanging to the side. My name is John Smith. My name is John Smith. I'm pretty sure that wasn't actually his real name.

John came to the auction a lot, he said, and he specialized in buying books. He might have bought my books once upon a time, jumbled up with thousands of others. He sympathized with my loss. He knew what it felt like, he said. It had happened to him. Yeah, let me tell It had happened to him. Yeah, let me tell you a really funny story. We shipped a case of books one time to us, we bought books,

and we got the same box taped up. It looked like it'd been through a tornado. And inside it was a bunch of screwdrivers and pliers. There was tools inside the same box. Nothing was said. Just, here you go, here's your package. And they just replaced it with the same weight, I guess, with go, here's your package and they just replaced it with the same weight, I guess, with screwdrivers and hammers and stuff, but my

books were gone. Did you ask them what happened to it? They just, what, I don't know, getting lost in the mail, I guess. The auction was still going on inside, but Ricky and Cindy, that couple who had bought that bin of American flags back in the day they were leaving empty handed. People are crazy. It must be the rich people today. People haven't got no sense in there today. Some women paid $50 for a box of VHS tapes.

What do you do with VHS tapes? I thought people was having money problems. I mean. Not here. There's nobody here having money problems. I mean, not here. Nobody here got money problems today. Yes. I'm leaving. I ain't nothing I can touch that I wanted.

So I'm going back home. I'm going to go find a lunch. First of all, we're going to go find lunch. Then we're going home. I watched Ricky and Cindy drive away. I was hot, sweaty, almost in a day, longing for home. But before I left, I turned and stood for a moment. And I watched the river of other people's things,

pouring out of the loading dumps, and then detrucks and moving vans. Those clothes you shipped home from college and never saw again. That fancy perfume your grandmother's wore up and down, she sent you for your birthday. The model Eiffel Tower that your dad says he air milled you from Paris. Your complete set of Southern living cookbooks, the ones with the devil degs on the cover.

All those things that you thought were lost forever, they're all here. They're all in Atlanta, across from Six Flags amusement park. And they're all in Atlanta, across from six flags amusement park, and they're all going home with someone else. And then there was nothing left to do but get in my car and drive home. And when I got home, I made eggplant parmesan. You can find a good recipe for it on page 153 of Sofia Lorenz' recipes and memories.

99% Invisible was produced this week by Samara Freemark, originally for the KCRW program on fictional. We found out about it via the third coast international audio festival. Samara now works for American Radio Works. You can find her on Twitter at S. Freemark, that's S-F-R-E-E-M-m-a-r-k 99% invisible is Sam Green's fancourt Cole Stead Katie Mingle Avery Trouffleman and me Roman Mars. We are a project of 91.7 K-A-LW San Francisco and produced out of the offices of Ark Sun, an architecture and interior's firm in beautiful downtown Oakland, California. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook.

We're all on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Spotify. And you can listen to every single episode of 99% visible and see pictures that go along with all the stories at 99pi.org. Radio Tapio from PRX.