OK, before asking my question, I have to admit that I got the idea for it from an episode of Beavis and Butt-head. Anyways, can I hop in a box, have a friend take me to the post office, and send myself to far-off destinations? If I can, would it be cheaper than airfare? I’m sure Beavis and Butt-head aren’t the first to think of this; has anyone else tried it? –Arvind Karwan, Fort Collins, Colorado
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For reasons to be shortly elucidated, not the least of which is that travel by post makes the most dimensionally challenged coach seat look like Cleopatra’s barge, mailing yourself is not something that I can in good conscience advise. But yes, it’s been done, occasionally in a noble cause, although more commonly in stupid ones. Herewith the facts, noble cause first:
Escape from New York. In September 2003 Charles D. McKinley, 25, had himself shipped by airfreight from New York to his parents’ house in suburban Dallas, his goal not freedom but saving the plane fare. This being the 21st century, McKinley took along not water but a computer and had himself picked up at a business in the Bronx. The carrier, Kitty Hawk Cargo, flew the encrated man from Newark to Buffalo to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Dallas, whence he was transported by truck to his folks’ house. He’d have gotten there undetected except that at the last minute he apparently removed a covering of some kind, allowing the deliveryperson to see him while unloading the box. The jig up, the driver called police, who arrested McKinley on some old warrants. A federal official conceded that U.S. air security measures clearly weren’t the impenetrable shield one might like in the wake of 9/11.
