[at-l] Mail dropping food?

[nealb@midlandstech.com (William Neal)]

Again I apologize for forgetting the original thread's heading.  I also
apologize if I missed something in scanning the digest.

I found mail dropping things like "Snickers" can be cost effective if you
get a great bargain on them.  I got  a really great bargain on Summer
Sausage.  We had a huge wooden display overflowing with summer sausage at
the Wally World I worked at.  But it did not sell too good.  So they
"dumped" it into some SALES carts and sold it "CHEAP!"  I had my employee's
discount and so I loaded up on it.  I ended up eating a lot of it before I
hit the trail, but it was cheap to mail it than to look for similar
substitutes on the trail.  I even had some left when I got back.  

Cultivate "friends" who work at Wally World, Target, Kmart, etc.  Hunt for
places that sell "poor sellers", goods from places that have gone
out-of-business, etc.  I bought a whole case of "instant" tomato soup from
Israel one time.  All that was wrong with it was the slight smoke-smudge and
smoky smell to the carton (it was from a Mom & Pop grocery that had burned.
At Wally World one time we OD on Kraft Mac'n'Cheese.  They were going to put
it on sale the next day, and when I found out I bought it at 10 cent a pack.
Combined with some other things, I had the makings for a cheese spread for
sandwiches, cheese sauce for Welch Rabbit, noodles to noodle up Chicken and
Noodle soup, etc.  Often there are ways (if you're willing to work for it)
of finding name brand and gourmet items really cheap.  & If they're real
cheap, they're worth mail dropping.  The key is to cultivate "friends" near
and far.  They can even "buy" things for you and mail them to you.  One guy
sent me two little jars of fish eggs.  Not too bad on a cold morning stirred
into a couple of cackle fruits.  

Also if you work in an establishment that has sales people coming through,
cultivate them.  I once (back in my smoking days) met a salesman who gave me
several cartons of "little cigars", several indiviudal big stoogies, and a
couple of boxes of White Owls.  Not food but it could have been.

And a couple of weeks ago, I helped out at "feed the homeless" dinner.  We
had so much bread that we workers were urged to take some home.

Cultivate friends and you might be surprised what you can find to mail drop
to yourself.  Come to think of it, my friends, who handled mail dropping for
me, found some very sturdy boxes to mail stuff to me because they worked
with a guy who ran a store.  Unfortunately they didn't mail any of the
products that had been in the boxes.  Their friend worked in a Red Dot store
(Y'all that ain't familar with South Carolina would call them liquor
stores).  Wish they had shipped one or two of those products.

William, The Turtle