Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Something FatHairyBastard said reminded me of one of my favorite things from the post office. I may have mentioned this here some years back, so pardon if this is a repeat.

At the post office, the facilities that process bulk mail and 3rd class parcels are full of huge machinery, and to be sorted, packages travel along series of conveyor belts and are fed onto large slides which funnel them to sorting stations. Invariably, things will break open due to the weight of all the packages above them, or insufficient glue or tape on the box.

Once a box of big floppy books made of brown paper( like grocery store bag paper) broke open, and I had to gather them up, pack them back into the box and then re-tape the lid. Turns out these were magazines in braille, and on the cover of each was printed in black letters the magazine name and the date, issue & volume numbers. What blew my mind was that some of the magazines were Playboys, and one of the cliches of the day was that some guys really did read Playboy for the articles. I decided that was true, but mostly, the guys who read it for the articles were blind.

13 comments:

none said...

You can read some decent writers in Playboy if you can get the pages unstuck...

phlegmfatale said...

Hyuk! Hyuk!

Liz said...

When I was in library school, we did indeed have Playboy in Braille at the big campus library. No pics, just articles.

Tickersoid said...

Playboy is only any use for the articles and the adverts which take up 60% of the magazine weight. The ladies have been so over 'touched' they look like vinyl.

I have this image in my mind of a blind man reading brail on a train, unaware that everyone else can read the Playboy title.

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

I thought I was the only guy who rubbed the pages thoughtfully - with my eyes closed!

HollyB said...

Heck, I remeber in High School, one of my friends used an article William O. Douglas had written for Playboy as one of his sources in a debate! Hey, It was Wm.O. Douglas, The Chief Justice of the Supremes!
It just doesn't get any better than that.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Maybe the pics are in braille as well.

FHB said...

Mushy, was that the scratch and sniff version? Mmmm, that new magazine, strait out of the plastic smell! Excuse me while I cover the keyboard with the plastic sheet.

LJ said...

Liz spoiled the image I had of braille pictures.

Maven said...

And here I am wondering if the braille version of porno mags actually have the outlines of the bodies raised so the guys can let their fingers do the walkin'... just wondering...

Memphis said...

They'd need some extra big bumps to make the photos into braille.

Meg said...

You know what they say, Phlegmmy, imagination is more powerful than the picture, or some such... I don't now how you continue to blog while toiling with your pretty things as well!

Attila the Mom said...

Hahahaha!