I got a good laugh from Paul Egerton's "worst packing materials." The
Canadian Post Office's policy of delivering anything with a stamp reminds
me of a song from my youth, which went in part, more or less:

I'm going to wrap myself in paper,
I'm going to seal myself with glue,
Stick some bubble gum in my head,
I'm going to mail myself to you.

In the United Kingdom, the Royal Mail delivers the post, but in America,
the U.S. Postal Service delivers the mail.

As a graduate student, a friend of mine ("Steve") was asked to wrap a type
specimen for return to a museum. Steve wrapped it in layer after layer of
shock-absorbing material, to the point where it might have withstood a bomb
blast. When his professor (Don Hattin) asked him if it was wrapped well
enough, Steve said nothing, just smiled and threw it into the wall. The
specimen was unharmed, not so the professor's nerves.

The esteemed malacologist Myra Keen did something very similar to her
students, as related in a previous installment of Conch-L, but it's a long
story and you can probably find it in the Archives by searching for
"+Conch-L +Keen" on Alta Vista.

Okay, guys, back to work.

Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama