Key Developments

The Pony absconded from OU with a key to the laboratory. Read that with the inflection:
la BOR a tory. No, he wasn't piecing together a Frankenstein. Just experimenting with nanoparticles, stretching them to change their shape for easier absorption or something. I'm not one to ask details of chemical engineering projects, even though I have a sciency background.

Anyhoo...The Pony really had no choice but to bring that key across state lines. He couldn't drop it in the box with his apartment key. Nobody was allowed on campus in the lab itself. So he couldn't give it to his faculty liaison, for whom he was doing the research. He DID get an email, with an address to send it to the home of a graduate student, who would then distribute keys to the proper faculty.

You'd think it would be a simple process to mail a key. You would think that wrongly. The Pony knew better than to drop the key in an envelope.

"They say it's not good to mail it in a letter. Not even wrapped in paper. The envelope has a tendency to tear."

"The post office machinery has a tendency to destroy it, you mean."

"Some people told me to tape it to a notecard. Between TWO notecards. Then it's fairly flat, even though it's a thick key."

"You probably need a little half-size manila envelope. The padded kind. But I don't have any of those. We can stop by the Dollar Store and see if they have some. Or else get one at the main post office."

The Pony decided to accompany me on my Thursday errands. We both got up EARLY, around 9:30, to leave the Mansion by 11:00. We made it out of there at 11:30.

 "Do you have the address?"

"Yes. I already taped the key in the notecards."

"Huh. That looks pretty flat. It doesn't feel much heavier than Genius's letter with the two scratchers. It's always right at the limit for only needing one stamp. I'm sure the key will need extra postage. I'll have them weigh it."

"Do you want me to get an envelope?"

"Yes. We can try it in an envelope. I'll ask when they weigh it. Then I don't have to go in the Dollar Store."

Of course every parking space in the main post office lot was full. What in the Not-Heaven, people? What is so mail-worthy on a Thursday, the 21st of May? I altered my route and came back about 20 minutes later. Only a couple cars were left. Inside, nobody was in the room with the counter. I asked about the key letter. The nice clerk was working.

"We don't recommend mailing the keys in an envelope. You should probably use a bubble-wrap envelope. The postage will be $3.80, but it will be safer."

"I figured we should. Do you have some here?"

"On the top shelf over there."

"Okay. I'll move over here to fill it out."

I copied the address onto the manila bubble-wrap envelope without the aid of my glasses, which I'd left in the back floor of T-Hoe with The Pony. Out of sight, out of mind. I'd never have forgotten them with my purse on the seat occupied by The Pony. Lucky for me, only one other customer came in. She wanted four stamps and a passport renewal form. So I didn't have to wait in a long, social-distanced line to mail the key.

"That will be $5.87 [approx],  for the cost of the envelope too."

I paid that extortion. Let's hope this envelope gets to Oklahoma sooner (heh, heh, Oklahoma SOONER, get it? The OU mascot!) than the letters I sent The Pony for four years.