by next century, use the US postal system.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_lostmail_022708/

How do they do it?? :0 I have seen news stories in the past about letters being delivered several decades after they were mailed. Where do these letters disappear to?

I remember reading about a case related to the Chicago PO, where the freight elevator was being refurbished and they found numerous letters that had "accidentally" fell down the shaft over the years and been lost.

I pictured them wedged behind some container, shelving, queued and lost, etc...

Ever go look at the handling and sorting system in your Post Office? Lots of bins and little bits of knowledge scattered around here and there. Some workers know a lot, others know less, everybody knows something unique.

Should something fall outta place, like behind the bin, or something, it might not get discovered for a really long time. In my Post Office, there is an old look to things back there, like it's just been done that way FOREVER.

They tend to keep stuff too. So, say a letter gets wedged in a machine, recently pulled from service. That machine might sit for a long time, stored, or maybe just there for parts, history, who knows?

That's my guess anyway.

Would be just great to get the full story on that part of things.

My older sister used to be vp for sun oil's credit card dept. They were replacing some computer equipment, and found several boxes of credit card receipts, you remember the old kind, paper transaction'. She just had them throw them away, rather than try to process them, they were several years old.

In Tulsa about 10 years ago, someone found some checks sticking out of the bottom of a storage container, when the police opened it, it was filled with mailbags all with mail addressed to Oral Roberts university. The mailman, dropping off mail, was keeping about a bag a week, taking out the cash donations, and throwing the rest into bags, and putting them in a storage bin. Oral got a bank to cash the checks, even the ones over a year old.