Sharon's July fish - USPS machines

 This is probably watercolor - so pretty - and the white dots make it pop. I don't know if this is an accurate rendering of a particular fish or a fantasy fish. Either way - those dots are spectacular. 

But, wait. There's more.

Sharon's September envelope knocked my socks off. You will see it in October.

***

I asked my postal worker son why at least once a month I get an envelope and the stamp is not cancelled. Sometimes the cancel is in the lower left corner. But sometimes there is no cancellation at all.

He said that the machines that cancel the mail are cooler than heck. They send the mail through, and if the scanner can see a stamp and *read* the address and the stamp - then a bar code is printed on the envelope and it proceeds. If the scanner doesn't see what it needs, it will flip the envelope over - top to bottom and send it through again. If that doesn't work, it will flip the envelope front to back and try again. Here is the cool part. The flipping happens so fast - you can't see it. One of the older guys showed him that you have to take a video of it (with your phone) and then watch it in slow motion.

I think he said that if the machine can't read an address and detect a stamp the envelope gets sent to people who do something. But, I do not recall exactly what he said.

So, he did not answer my question. I do not know if he is going to research this for us. At one point he said, "We HATE magnets! Don't mail magnets. They stick to the machines and mess everything up."

I've seen Save the Dates that are printed on magnets. I hope that trend has passed.

And, yes, there are places where they fill up the ink so he said that might be a possibility - but he really had no idea.