Dear Postal Customer:

I want to extend my sincere apology as your Plant Manager for the enclosed document that was inadvertently damaged in handling by your Postal Service.

We are aware how important your mail is to you. With that in mind, we are forwarding it to you in an expeditious fashion.

The United States Postal Service handles over 202 billion pieces of mail each year. While each employee makes a concerted effort to process, without damage, each piece of mail, an occasional mishap does happen.

You can help us greatly in our efforts to improve our processing methods if you will continue to properly prepare and address each letter or parcel that you enter into the mail-stream.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

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Dear Postal Customer:

It has long been our policy to get your letters and parcels to you in the efficient, timely manner you deserve. It is not officially our policy that our carriers defecate in your Pottery Barn catalogues before they are delivered. I swear that it was an absolute emergency, and sincerely apologize for any catalogues you may have received/will receive that give any impression to the contrary.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

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Dear Postal Customer:

It appears that the mail we deliver to you today is not among the many hundreds of millions that we delivered just this morning without incident. Indeed, as you can see from the need for this bag, your mail is not entirely in one piece. We have managed to salvage several bits of the front of an envelope that once contained a letter intended for you.

It is not the policy of the USPS to rip apart mail and throw letters to the wind, making it impossible to deliver more than a few scraps of paper. However, it does happen from time to time. In the future, you can help us improve our delivery systems by not sending your mail in inflammatory envelopes.

Also, the original postmark on this envelope is illegible, but my friend Steve and I think it is from late 2002.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

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Dear Postal Customer:

The USPS always sees an increase in mailed parcels during the Valentine’s Day Holiday Season. This year we moved over 17 billion parcels during the first two weeks of February. Most of these were delivered in a timely fashion, as is our policy. A few, however, were set aside until late last night.

The packages were then moved to an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront, at which time an anonymous call was made to a local heavy known only as Hansel. Hansel arrived at the warehouse shortly after two in the morning. He wasted no time in working over the parcels first with a baseball bat, then with a crude machete and finally with a small yet powerful acetylene torch. Per his anonymous instructions, he left the packages outside our local plant, soaking in a drum of vinegar.

We have worked quickly since we found the packages this morning to get them to their owners in a timely fashion. You can facilitate delivery of your future packages by asking your senders to avoid busy holiday seasons and Tuesdays, which are never good for us.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

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Dear Postal Customer:

I want to extend my sincere apology as your Plant Manager for the enclosed relative that was inadvertently damaged in handling by your Postal Service.

It is not our policy to meticulously stalk, track down, hunt, kidnap, and box up our customers’ loved ones. Still, the occasional mishap does occur. Because we know your family is important to you we are forwarding this cardboard tomb to you in an expeditious fashion.

You can help us greatly in our efforts to improve our processing methods by telling your relatives that we are a reality, we are not going away, and they can expect us to come to their homes, six days a week, in rain or hail or sleet or snow or heat of day or dark of night.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.