Wednesday, December 08, 2010

So Today I Got Asked a Crazy Question

Okay, so today I got asked a crazy question. Someone I know is a publisher in Canada. The cost of shipping a magazine across the border is higher than you can charge for the magazine, so while cross-border subscriptions look good on paper, they lose money except for advertising revenue.
Anyway, when this publisher started publishing and told me about that, I suggested he rent an apartment in the company's name on the US side of the border, and then once a month have an employee drive the US destined magazines over the border into the US and mail them using the company's US address. Seemed pretty straightforward to me--though I also suggested he contact a lawyer to make sure it was legal and all that jazz.
So I guess he did that. Or thought he did. Until today, when he called and said he needed a little favor. He said he was paying a courier to make the cross border trip once a week, but that with handling fees and courier fees he wasn't really saving anything. And worse, when magazines were returned for wrong addresses or such, the courier always sends them back to Canada, costing even more.
So he asked if he could use my address. Just for the returns. Then I'd go through them and email him and tell them what the postal service had written about why they were returned--"no such address"; "Person moved" or what not.
I said, "Just for the one magazine?"
He paused. "No. I got to be upfront with you. We also have a line of porno mags. We have 43 titles, then we have porno books and videos. Straight, gay, fetish, you name it...That would come to you as well..."
My turn to pause. "You know I'm not necessarily liked in my town. I mean, I've gotten some people reprimanded, some people fired for corruption, that sort of thing. And I'm thinking that if my home became the place where your porno came, we'll if I'm not under the microscope yet, I probably would be pretty quickly."
He said he understood and that was that.
He hung up and I had to laugh. I can just see me trying to explain away box loads of heavy fetish porn to the local gendarmerie while I have Madeleina and Chepa's babies here half the time. That would go over real big, eh? Probably about 400 years in the pen worth of big.

1 comment:

Gritter said...

Jeez Peter, you can get into more sheet than any three people I know.