fifty.four.euros.!

It all started last fall when suddenly a book was not allowed to be shipped as a letter, but has to go as a package. Raising the cost from €3.50 to €16 (outside EU) and that put a definite end to a small pleasure of mine, sharing books I have read with friends of mine all over the world. I know it doesn't make for a good carbon footprint of the book doing so, but it's not as if I was doing it all the time. 

Little did I think that would affect my quilting, at that point.

When I tried to ship my contribution to the SAQA benefit auction recently, I found out it did, though. 

A letter weighing 250 grams (what's that, like 8 or 9 ounces?) could not be shipped

as a letter, because 'no merchandise in letters, only paper documents!' but had to be a package, and was to be fined for being in bubble wrap instead of a carton. The postal service wanted to charge me €54…! I almost fainted.

Subsequent attempts at shipping it via UPS were difficulty-ridden as well - online labeling, then the delivery point could not scan the code, and although the thing was not picked up at the door I still had to pay that fee) but I refused to succumb and finally managed to get it on the way. At 'only' half the price it would have cost with DHL.

 That took a lot of doing and I will see how it will influence my future decisions to enter for a challenge or show.

I used to think that it is a postal service's innate thing to transport something from A to B. When I feel like I am being ripped off unfairly, though, I might refuse to send stuff anymore. Then what is the post going to do when lots of people stop using their services? But it spoils my little pleasure to a significant amount.