FedEx: Homeland Security won't let us ship "Certainty" in empty boxes

Cory Doctorow 5:14 pm Fri Jan 12, 2007

Paul sez, "Homeland Security has gotten to FedEx. I tried to ship some make-believe products from Greenwood Space Travel Supply (the "front" for Seattle's branch of 826 Valencia), including 'Rocket Fuel' and 'Certainty.' FedEx, however, wouldn't let me, saying that they were 'too suspicious' and looked like 'bomb-making materials.' Despite the fact that they were mostly just empty containers with funny words on them. Hilarious, but sad."

Me [going into post-9/11, TSA-style super-dumbfounded mode]: So what you're saying is you can't ship any sort of containers, even if they're empty? You know that we originally ordered these empty cans and jars from a company, and *they* shipped them to *us*.
FedEx guy: They must have used a different vendor ["vendor"? I can't remember, some word like that, like a "service"].

Which I imagine he said because he couldn't bring himself to say, "It's the *words* that are *on* the containers that are dangerous"–even after I had opened them all and demonstrated the utter harmlessness/emptiness of the containers themselves.

(Thanks, Paul!)

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