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Lick the living, from your Postal Service
You too can appear on a postage stamp
Perry Block
To combat seas of red ink, the U. S. Postal Service recently announced that it will soon issue stamps featuring people who are still alive, which it hopes will appeal to collectors.
Until now, you had to be six feet under before the Postal Service issued a stamp in your likeness, on the sensible theory that once you're dead, the book on you is closed.
Abraham Lincoln, for example, is unlikely at this point in time to begin tweeting visual images of his ding-dong to the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Once the Postal Service institutes its new "Lick the Living" policy, it will place its entire viability at the mercy of the latest celebrity meltdown. Were it already in effect ….
Your son or daughter could kiss his or her wedding presents goodbye if the only book of stamps you have available for sending out more than 230 wedding invitations is a "Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger," circa 1985.
Ditto for bar mitzvah invitations mailed with old "Braveheart Mel Gibson" stamps.
Sending a condolence card? Best not to dispatch it with a 2010 stamp bearing the likeness of America's now well-recognized No. 1 Executioner, Governor Rick Perry of Texas.
And if you sent a billing invoice to anyone in 2011 with a Kevin James stamp, would he or she even bother to open it, let alone pay it?
"Quite frankly, the proper dead person is the best choice for all your mailing needs." With a slogan like that, the Postal Service could be back in the black in no time.
Until now, you had to be six feet under before the Postal Service issued a stamp in your likeness, on the sensible theory that once you're dead, the book on you is closed.
Abraham Lincoln, for example, is unlikely at this point in time to begin tweeting visual images of his ding-dong to the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Once the Postal Service institutes its new "Lick the Living" policy, it will place its entire viability at the mercy of the latest celebrity meltdown. Were it already in effect ….
Your son or daughter could kiss his or her wedding presents goodbye if the only book of stamps you have available for sending out more than 230 wedding invitations is a "Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger," circa 1985.
Ditto for bar mitzvah invitations mailed with old "Braveheart Mel Gibson" stamps.
Sending a condolence card? Best not to dispatch it with a 2010 stamp bearing the likeness of America's now well-recognized No. 1 Executioner, Governor Rick Perry of Texas.
And if you sent a billing invoice to anyone in 2011 with a Kevin James stamp, would he or she even bother to open it, let alone pay it?
"Quite frankly, the proper dead person is the best choice for all your mailing needs." With a slogan like that, the Postal Service could be back in the black in no time.
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