I’ve discovered a couple things these past couple weeks about the Japan Post Office.

1) A lot depends on which post office you choose.
2) It’s easier to send ink than knives.

On two different occasions in the past I’ve tried to mail knives to the USA and found myself explaining Japanese knife laws to, well, a large group Japanese postal workers. in their defense, they seem to think all folding knives are “switchblades” like those illegally wielded by Stephen Colbert.

When mailing the ink I had to prove, at least the first time I mailed some, that the ink was not a dangerous item. At one point the postal worker pointed to my signature confirming that they contents were not dangerous and went “Really? Really” (something like that).

Today, though, I took six different packages to a different post office. (Because it meant stuff was going out and money was coming in, She Who Must Be Obeyed offered to drive. This, it would seem, is a hobby of which she approves.)

She drove to a post office I’d never been to before but which she described as “her post office.”

As soon as we entered, we found out we were first in line and got immediate service. At that point, though, She Who Must Be Obeyed abandoned me to the clerk. The clerk took the boxes and his first concern was how many I had (six). He also pointed to my explanation that it was “bottled ink” and went, very politely, “what the hell is this?”. I explained it was fountain pen ink and he nodded and more or less went “cool”.

After that the biggest concern was that the shipping slips actually matched the correct boxes (they did).

It took five minutes for them to process everything and collect the money–whilst a small crowd assembled behind me–and then it was over.

I’ll definitely go back to the that post office again; that is, I will if I decide to keep buying and reselling ink. I also wonder how long they’ll actually believe I’m actually sending that many gifts…