Home > Electronics Cranny > Electronic “Snappy” Mail: The Future of Correspondence

Electronic “Snappy” Mail: The Future of Correspondence

November 24, 2014 Leave a comment Go to comments
By Neil Cuppy

By Neil Cuppy

Last July, the Lankville Postsmasters General gave the signal that put into operation one of the most revolutionary systems of communications in the long history of the Posts Offices Department. At the signal, an ordinary letter was inserted into a machine in the Lankville capitol. Three hours later, another letter, absolutely identical to the one in the capitol, popped out of a hose that had been affixed to the side of a shed in the Lankville Grasslands.

Thousands of other letters– all official– followed at the rate of one every hour for each pair of sending and receiving machines. Since there were always four letter pairs operating in each direction, there followed a period of deep confusion and, ultimately, a vast clogging of the hose. This minor setback, however, was repaired by adding a second hose to the side of the shed. It was at this point that the long-awaited age of “Snappy Mail”– the Posts Offices Department’s name for this new service– had begun.

Simplified explanation.

Simplified explanation.

Actually, the July operation was only a test. Although several governmental agencies and a sauce restaurant have transmitted via “Snappy Mail”, you can’t send letters– yet. And you probably won’t be able to for another three or four years. Why? Because a third hose will need to be added.

Nonetheless, if present plans work out, “Snappy Mail Shoppes” will be established in Lankville’s 71 largest cities. Such a system will mean same-day or next-day or the-day-after-that delivery anywhere throughout the country. The limiting factor, of course, will be the man-hours required to handle pickup and delivery and also the hoses. The actual transmission to the next city or even to the house next door will take only seconds.

So, let’s see how Snappy Mail will work.

Let’s say you live in the Woods and you want to send a letter to a relative, friend, or that friend’s wife. You’ll just write the letter on a special form (similar to the one used during the Depths War). Since the form will then be cut into threes, you will want to write only towards the top. Use heavy black lines.

The Future of Mail

The Future of Mail

Now, you’ll put the letter in a special “Snappy Mail Hamper”. These hampers will be color-coded by region– for example, if you live in The Woods, you will look for the pink one. You’ll also be able to take your letter to any one of several planned “Snappy Mail Posts Offices” (to date, the Posts Office promises as many as 200 locations!)

Next, the special “Snappy Mail Coder” will stamp your letter with the date and location. It is while being fed through the machines that the letter will be torn into threes and the lower two parts will be removed and recycled for holiday wrapping paper. Just think– the very letter that you wrote to your friend’s wife could very well end up being the paper that you wrap her secret gift in! Part of the resourceful planning of the Posts Offices Department!

Your letter will now be stacked in a special cartridge along with 400-500 others. The cartridge, like every other device in the process, is specially designed to provide secrecy. An operator will simply push a button and the Posts Offices “Cartridge Jenny” will send your letter flying across the country to its intended destination. Suction cups grasp each letter, shove it, pull on it and pound it flat so that it will slide easily and without lubricant of any kind into the automatic scanner.

As each letter slides into place, it trips a photoelectronic “Lumens Cell Circuit” which begins the scanning process. Your letter will be lightly baked and powdered and your original message will now appear in a black, soot-like substance on the paper. A facsimile beam will now sweep across your letter, very much like a beam might sweep across the screen of your TV set or across your body if you were to make an attempt to escape to the east.

And now your “Snappy Mail” letter will be delivered to your relative, friend or your friend’s wife. And only a few short hours after you sat composing the very same letter– sweating and feverish, cursing aloud, trying desperately not to include lewd comments, over your cramped bedroom desk!

The miracle of the Lankville “Snappy Mail” system– something we can all look forward to with anticipation.

Categories: Electronics Cranny Tags: , , ,
  1. No comments yet.
  1. No trackbacks yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: