this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
670 points (98.0% liked)
memes
22764 readers
1940 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I honestly think it's kinda sweet how it worked to be honest.
People showed up, gave their kid postage, and told the clerk they were mailing them. Clerk was confused for a minute, and then conceded that there was nothing technically forbidden about that. Kid hops on the scale, postage is correct, and the kid waits behind the counter until the trip to train, where they ride with the operator.
Basically people gently gaming the system and the people involved saying "you're technically correct" and then looking after a random child.
They only stopped it because they decided you can't operate a train and keep a kid safe at the same time, and weight is not a great way to price childcare.
Yeah, I actually think these types of thing are a healthy thing for society.
The fact some parents were like “I can’t afford a train ticket” and some postal workers just went with it is great.
i mean, some parents are currently like "i can only afford one plane ticket" and just have to hope the adult their kid gets sat by is safe. it kind of feels the same way.
Going through the postal service might have been safer than other forms of travel because there would have been more explicit exchanges of custody. Like put a kid on a passenger train and they could just get off and get lost before getting on a connecting train and who knows what happened to them? They arrived on train A but never got on train B.
Whereas with mail, the kid becomes the operator's responsibility. If the kid is handed over to the operator to ride train A but then is nowhere to be found at the destination, then that operator is the prime suspect. Or the operator hands the kid off to the next operator in the journey and the kid is now their responsibility.
And even if you have a babysitter, passenger stations are going to be a lot more crowded than cargo stations, so keeping track of a kid will be a lot easier, plus the driver is the babysitter for the postal service, so they won't miss their train or take the wrong one by accident (unless they are routed incorrectly lol).
A plane has at least a lot of people around. In postal service, one can assume the kid spends quite some time alone with the operator. You just have to trust that random person!
I'd like to hear your solution then!
Look, I never claimed to be a genius. You can't just go asking people questions like that and expect them to know.
I just know that childcare for a bushel of babies shouldn't be the same as for an individual seven year old.
was just being a smart ass bud, calmate
(I was responding with tongue firmly in my cheek, and I laughed out loud because I actually can't think of why weight is a bad pricing model, beyond it obviously being not what you use. Hence "bushel of babies")
:)
Thought this was some ICE news I hadn’t heard about.
Hearing this quirky description makes me think Picard Maneuver is shilling against mail-in voting, given the timing.
Plus, they don't stack well
Honestly just mailing a kid back and forth is probably cheaper than childcare.