Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: I Just Used Glue on a Postage Stamp — Sheltering Day 8

Caveat: At the time I wrote this piece I was convinced that the using glue to attach an unused stamp to a letter was against postal regulations. I’m pretty sure a postal worker told me this at some point. Since this writing I’ve learned that a little glue stick on a balky postage stamp is just fine.  

“Affix your stamps securely,” the post office advises, “but do not put tape over the stamp(s) — this invalidates the postage. If your envelope is textured, or contains decorative fibers or floral inclu­sions, you may want to secure the postage using a glue stick.”

Sheltering in Place Day 8, Tuesday, March 24, 2020

I’m doing stuff you’re not supposed to do. I’m breaking rules all over the place today. Desperate times, desperate measures. The consarned coronavirus pandemic has made an outlaw of me.

Postal regulations are clear (or so I thought at the time of this writing) — do not use glue to secure postage stamps to an envelope. If your 55-cent postage stamp is defective, if it won’t stick to the envelope, take it to your nearest post office for assistance.

Likewise, my sister-in-law, the nurse, has been clear about pills and pill bottles for years: do not store medications outside their original, clearly labeled containers. That’s dangerous, she says. You could take the wrong pill by accident. Or too much of it. Or it could expire without your knowing it. A child might find the pills and mistake them for candy. Bad things could happen.

There Are Headaches in LA, So I’m Breaking Rules in Oakland

But — my daughter and her husband are out of acetaminophen in Los Angeles. Delivery dates for  painkillers ordered on line are iffy, they tell me. They are confined by the pandemic to a two-bedroom apartment, and people are having headaches.

Fortunately, I have a plentiful supply of store-brand acetaminophen up here in Oakland. I told Christina I’d mail her a few pills from our stash.

Visits to the post office are a non-starter for Jon and me. We’re keeping a pretty strict shelter-at-home routine. On the other hand, dropping a piece of mail into a post office drop box from the car works just fine. But there’s a catch: drop box mail can’t be more than a half inch thick — USPS regulations.

And so, with Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx looking over my shoulder, I dumped 24 brand new extra strength acetaminophen pills from their two-inch wide bottle into a flat sandwich bag — after dousing my hands, the bottle and the bag (but not the pills) with lavish squirts of hand sanitizer from our modest horde.

I tucked the pills into a gently pre-used padded envelope, which I had also doused with goops of precious hand sanitizer.

I threw the pill bottle away. But, in deference to my sister-in-law, I flattened the pills’ original, clearly labeled box and put it into the envelope with the pills — after I’d doused the box with sanitizer, of course.

I did not lick the envelope.

Desperate times, desperate measures

Now I was ready to address the envelope and apply some stamps.

The addressing of the envelope went OK. The stamps were a problem. They would not stick to the envelope, which was still soggy from its sanitizer bath.

What to do? Get out the glue, of course. Defy the mighty USPS and glue those puppies in place.

As I write, the pills, envelope and the peeling-away stamps are sitting on the kitchen windowsill drying. As soon as the hand sanitizer has evaporated, I’ll check to see that the stamps are securely stuck to the envelope. If they are, I’ll jump in the car, drop the envelope in our neighborhood drive-by USPS box, and make my getaway.