booked up

Melissa Ann Howell Schier
4 min readSep 13, 2024

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The book Filly had picked out as a gift for an amazing toddler, was a pop up book. It was a vintage book as well and had lots of amazing animals that a kid might see at the zoo. Filly was on her way out of town when she had gone to mail it, but the post office counter was closed. The kiosk was open however so she put the book in one of the white envelopes stored at the island, and took it over to the kiosk to measure, weigh and pay with her credit card.

The kiosk charged about ten dollars for the book. Filly knew that the media/book rate would have been about a third of that cost but she willingly paid the extra cost because she had a flight to make and could not wait until the counter opened. She folded the envelope with the book inside and put the label on the package with the fee and addresses, that printed out from the kiosk.

Then she went and tried to put it in the outgoing packages but the book was like an eight of an inch too thick so she drove back to home and put the book sticking out of the mailbox with the lid open because it did not fit in the home mailbox either. She hoped it would not fall out on the ground before the mailman came to pick up and deliver.

She left on the plane, but a few days later, when her son contacted her about the book, he sent her a screen shot of the memo left by the postman asking for an additional thirty five dollars extra postage. Filly could not believe it. Her son just wanted her permission to return the book or to tell him the name of the book so he could purchase it himself, but she could not give him that information because she had not written down the name of the book. Also she had purchased it at a vintage shop so it was likely not in print any more.

Filly had to Venmo the additional cost to her daughter in law so that the couple did not have to pay the fee for the gift. The item was simply one book. It should have only cost about two dollars to ship. Now it would end up costing about forty five dollars, which was a huge increase. When Filly next went to the post office, to send her sister some home made fudge from Colorado, she asked the clerk about the reason for the increase.

The clerk said that when a person uses one of the envelopes in the post office, even if a fee has been charged at the kiosk, they can charge additional fees because it is the envelope that designates that it is overnight. Filly had picked a priority envelope. It did not say overnight. But still, she had made a mistake by using a post office envelope. She should have just waited until she could speak with a counter person or brought her own packaging.

It made Filly think however, about the government, and how something that “seems” free, like her envelope, or paying off student loans, or free medical care for immigrants or free houses for the homeless, LOOK like they are a “gift” but are NOT. Kind of like the Trojan horse gift that was given to the Romans which had hidden within soldiers that surprised attacked them. These “Gifts” end up costing hundreds of times more than the initial “gift” given a recipient. And the result of government constantly giving “gifts” that it has not paid for, is government overspending, that then causes inflation. And inflation costs everyone.

Filly should have known better than to take an available envelope just because it “SEEMED” free. It was NOT free. The population of the USA should also be wary of accepting “FREE” phones, or “FREE” housing or “FREE” vaccines. Filly had just learned that two people who had taken covid vaccines now had “sudden onset deafness”. The cost in health, the cost in inflation, the cost in loss of freedom (phone tracking) and the theft of intellectual property (phone monitoring) were all TOO MUCH to pay. Those who are paying attention to what is being given away, could look the FAKE gift horse in the mouth, for what it was and avoid being entrapped. What seemed free, had in fact, incurred a great cost. Freedom is not free. For many people, hindsight is twenty twenty. But Filly had foresight. And for this she was grateful.
“I like people who push the envelope …. away.” Filly said thinking of the “free” envelope at the post office, that was not free. People can and will, learn from mistakes and not repeat them. The next book she planned to read, and possibly mail, (media rate) was featured in the new Regan movie that she had just seen, with Dennis Quaid, titled “that printer of Udells”. Should be good.

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Melissa Ann Howell Schier

HoustonWorkout on YouTube, mom of five, journalist and artist and conservative who values life.