Crowing in the Post Office

       Thursday morning I was in the downtown Midland post office picking up a book from Amazon when I heard a rooster crowing from somewhere in the back of the building. I didn’t believe what I heard, at first, but the sound repeated, over and over, and it was unmistakable. There was a rooster in the post office. Someone had mailed a rooster and it was in the back of the building alongside all the other packages and letters waiting to be picked up. I wouldn’t have thought you could actually mail a rooster.

       Once I returned to my pickup in the post office parking lot I posted: “I’ve seen people pick up boxes of chicks before, but I didn’t know you could mail a rooster.”

       Some of the comments I received: “You can even mail fighting roosters. I once had a church member who was a fighting rooster dealer,” “Maybe it was a chick when they dropped it in the mail,” and then this, “When I drop off snakes the FedEx workers know me and want to see pictures.”

       I looked it up and discovered In compliance with USPS Publication 52 section 526.4 (live adult birds), chickens are indeed mailable when also shipped in accordance with USPS DMM section 601 (mailability) subsection 9.4.3 as well as USPS Publication 14. So the answer? Yes, you can mail roosters.

       There are a few rules, of course. Your chicken must be disease-free, can’t be dead already, and weigh at least 6 ounces but not over 25 pounds.

       Once I was on the research kick I decided to see if you can buy roosters from Amazon. Apparently, no. Unless live roosters are buried further down the list of suggestions than I had patience to find (and I looked at least ten pages deep). You can, however, buy metal roosters for your yard, non-slip rooster rugs for your kitchen, rooster trucker’s hats, rooster puzzles (which would have been handy to know in 2020 when everyone was working puzzles during the great quarantine), rooster toothpick holders, rooster wine glasses, rooster crossbody cell phone purses, rooster earrings, and even a biography of Rooster Cogburn of True Grit fame.

        Why am I writing about this? Because in a world at war in eastern Europe, with COVID-19 rampaging in Hong Kong, and raging wildfires in central Texas, it makes me smile to know someone – maybe someone I know – ordered a rooster by mail and it arrived Thursday morning and now their flock of chickens will be more complete.

 “I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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